Ok, so this is a question about the in-game level progression. Let’s consider White for example. You start off in Nuvema town, encountering pokemon around level 5, and finally end up in Lacunosa town, surrounded by Pokemon of levels upto 60! The inhabitants of these end game towns must live in constant mortal peril, and their kids probably have no chance of becoming trainers! My question is whether you can think of any way of logically reconciling this level gap? – Adi

Hrm… I’ve thought about this before and failed to come up with any satisfactory answer.  This isn’t a problem specific to Pokémon, of course – almost any combat-centred RPG has to introduce progressively more difficult opponents in order to keep the game interesting, and while most players are willing to suspend disbelief for something so clearly necessary to the functioning of the game, it’s still nice to have an explanation.  However, this is easier for some games to produce than others, simply depending on the nature of the story being told and the world in which it takes place, and Pokémon definitely has more to justify than most.

I think the most obvious possibility is that you encounter more powerful Pokémon later in the game because stronger Pokémon become willing to challenge you as you get stronger (so we imagine that the strange level distributions are actually an illusion of sorts) but that doesn’t explain why you still find weak Pokémon when you go back to earlier areas.  The weird thing is, NPCs in the games actually do acknowledge this pattern sometimes – for instance, if you try to head east from Santalune City towards Snowbelle City right at the beginning of the game, you’re stopped near the entrance to Victory Road and told that you aren’t ready for the kind of opponents you’ll find that way.  It seems, at least at times, like the inhabitants of this world are well aware that some parts of their regions are much more dangerous than others for no readily obvious reason.  I think what this has to suggest is that the skewed level distributions we see are very real, and that they can deal with it.  Pokémon are not, in any real sense, in conflict with humanity as a group, so I doubt that towns in even the most high-level areas are in constant or unmanageable danger – you’d want to be careful walking around outside town without protection, obviously, but we’ve always received the same warnings about even the most benevolent areas at the beginning of each game.  As for new trainers, it seems likely to me that a trainer’s career can start in a number of ways, and that in places with tougher wild Pokémon it’s more common to practice with and then inherit a fairly powerful starter a little later in life rather than be given a low-level one right off the bat (think about it – the trainer classes that represent prepubescent children like Youngsters, Lasses and Bug Catchers tend to hang out in the earlier areas of the game; trainers in higher-levelled areas tend to be older as well as stronger).  Basically, their surroundings do present difficulties for Pokémon training as a career and an institution, but they manage to get around it.  None of this, unfortunately, explains why some areas have higher-level Pokémon in the first place…

Favourite X and Y Pokemon so far? Also, be patient with Skrelp… He evolves very late; I believe level 49?

Hmm… that’s a tough one.  I think at the moment it might be Inkay, for having such an offbeat fighting style and being so ridiculously cute, as well as daring to be a sea creature that isn’t a Water-type.  I also have a major soft spot for Amaura and Aurorus, for reasons of dinosaurs, and I kinda like Goomy for being such a weird Dragon-type, but I’m waiting for the final evolution to make up my mind about that.

Fairy Tale

Laverre City, which is probably Amiens, is a town out of a storybook.  All quaint wooden cottages, surrounded by gargantuan fly amanita mushrooms and fields of pink flowers, clustered around a huge, ancient broadleaf tree, into which the town’s clock tower and Pokémon Gym are built.  Only two signs of encroaching modernity disrupt the picturesque scene: a modern Pokémon Centre with all the standard amenities, and an imposing industrial complex on the town’s northern outskirts: the factory that produces the entire Kalos region’s Pokéballs.  After a brief tour of Laverre City to give the inhabitants the opportunity to offer tribute to their new ruler (which yields another Mega Stone: Gengarite!) I go to inspect the Pokéball factory… and find its entrance guarded by a Team Flare grunt.  Despite my finest quips and most withering taunts, he refuses to budge, or even to engage me in battle.  Curses; how am I supposed to dispense vigilante justice effectively if I can’t actually attack people?  I decide to go with my usual standby in these situations and take out my frustrations on the Gym.

I’m… not exactly sure what I was expecting from the Laverre Gym, but certainly not this.  The Gym seems to be, quite simply, someone’s house: an extremely lavish home, with work rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom – all connected not by doors but by an old-school network of warp panels.  Some of the rooms are filled with sewing paraphernalia and supplies, and I quickly learn from the trainers that the Gym Leader, whose name is Valerie, is a clothing designer.  Strange that her extravagant creations don’t seem to be available in Laverre’s clothing store – I guess she works strictly for a higher class of clientele.  Laverre City’s Gym specialises, of course, in Fairy Pokémon, and they have a few new ones for me to meet: Slurpuff and Aromatisse, the evolved forms of Swirlix and Spritzee (whom I obtain for myself shortly afterwards by trading with Adam), and a key ring Pokémon called Klefki, who is a Fairy/Steel dual-type, and turns up on the next route for me to catch – I may as well talk about all these now.  Slurpuff is a remarkably silly-looking bipedal meringue with a supernaturally acute sense of smell; as little as I was expecting from Swirlix’s evolution, I actually find myself somewhat disappointed that Slurpuff isn’t more colourful – the pastel pinks are a bit boring, and I rather think that if you’re going to make a candy Pokémon anyway you should really push the boat out with it.  Aromatisse is… on some level a little disturbing.  I feel like Big Bird’s French cousin is trying to seduce me.  That is all.  Klefki is, I suppose, a neat little concept; he doesn’t seem to evolve, since he’s immediately followed in the Pokédex by Murkrow, but he does have Prankster, and just being a Steel-type is generally a plus, even if they’re not as powerful as they used to be.  I suppose he’ll live and die on his support movepool.

Once I’ve dealt with all of these, I manage to stumble through all the warp panels and reach Valerie’s room on the top floor of the Gym.  Valerie herself wears an extravagant winged costume, because she’s always wanted to be a Pokémon, and uses a lot of wind and flight imagery in her speech.  No word on whether the costume actually allows her to fly, but I suppose she should be allowed to indulge her fantasies.  Some of Valerie’s Gym trainers have been acting snooty about their Fairy-types’ vaunted immunity to Dragon attacks, so I decide to teach Valerie a lesson by opening with Pytho the Sliggoo against her Mawile, who doesn’t actually seem to have any Fairy attacks and consequently turns out to be easy prey.  Her next Pokémon, a Mr. Mime, proves much more irritating – Pytho actually does fairly well here, but Valerie keeps healing the damn thing, so I eventually have to switch her out and send in Odysseus.  By this time Mr. Mime has taken a pretty heavy accuracy penalty from Pytho’s Muddy Water attack and is in no shape to keep fighting for long, so he goes down quickly.  Finally, out comes Valerie’s signature Pokémon – a Sylveon, who knocks out poor Odysseus with a powerful Fairy attack called Dazzling Gleam.  Enough is enough, I decide, and throw in Ilex, who puts Sylveon to sleep, boosts up with Growth, and flattens her with Petal Dance.  In defeat, Valerie lapses into a sort of introspective trance, handing over with little comment the Fairy Badge (seriously?  It’s the first Fairy-type Gym in the history of the game and Fairy Badge was the best you could come up with?), a sliver of translucent pink agate in a gilded frame shaped like a pair of fairy wings with a brilliant opal in the centre, along with a TM whose contents she has forgotten (it turns out, upon inspection, to be Dazzling Gleam, which no-one in my party can learn).  She starts murmuring to herself about her connection with her Pokémon, so I leave her to it and go to check out the Pokéball factory again.

It seems my rivals have had the same idea.  Shauna and Trevor have been refused entry to the factory and are fleeing from the incensed Team Flare guard, while Tierno is running around like a headless chicken, as he is wont to do – but the door us now unattended, so Serena suggests we take the opportunity to break in.  At first I was rather excited to be seeing the inside of a Pokéball factory – I hoped I might learn something about how Pokéballs function, or at least get a bit of ethical philosophy fodder, but in that respect it’s a bit of a bust really.  All I see are conveyor belts leading to and from parts unknown.  I do manage to elicit a plaintive “if Pokéballs are stolen by Team Flare, we can’t become friends with Pokémon…” from one of the captive workers, which is an interesting sentiment (considering that Pokéballs are pretty modern things and people have been working with Pokémon for millennia), but hardly a novel one.  Quickly growing bored, Serena and I plough through the Team Flare grunts and confront their admin, a woman this time, though wearing a similar horrendous outfit to her male counterpart, in the president’s office.  I have Odysseus stomp her two Pokémon, a Scraggy and a Houndoom, as quickly as possible.  With the admin are two other women who claim, like Aliana, to be scientists – one, Bryony, has bright green hair and wears green glasses with some sort of digital HUD, while the other, Celosia, has purple hair and a heavy visor like Aliana’s, though a little sleeker (interesting that there seems to be an alphabet motif going on with their names here – not unlike the names of the games themselves).  Again like Aliana, they appear to be both the brains and the brawn of the operation, and I’m not entirely sure whether they rank higher or lower than the admin they accompany.  The scientists summon a Manectric and a Liepard, which Serena and I face with my Malamar, Photia, and her Meowstic.  Liepard is initially a danger to Meowstic, but once both of them have been confused with Swagger, things quickly become fairly simple.  Celosia, Bryony and the admin give up and flee with their underlings, and the grateful president gives me and Serena a big nugget and a Master Ball each.  A news report on the Holo Caster soon confirms that Team Flare’s actions are unlikely to disrupt supplies of Pokéballs to the Kalos region.  Wait- this thing gets the news?  What is it actually even for?

That seems to be all there is to Laverre City for now, so I pack up and move on towards the next city, Dendemille Town.  Along the way I pick up Klefki, whom I’ve already talked about, Watchog, Mightyena, Pawniard, Murkrow, Lombre, Floatzel, Basculin and Poliwhirl, learn a dangerous forbidden roller skating trick from an elderly gentleman who leads an underground street gang in a burned out hotel (you know, a usual day), grab a Litwick, an Electrode and a Magneton… and receive another Holo Caster message from Lysandre, who wants to shoot the breeze about Mega Evolution.  Lysandre says that, according to Professor Sycamore’s research, Mega Evolution is a massive release of hidden energy, and wonders “do all people and Pokémon have such potential, or is it hidden only within a chosen few?”  Wait- people?  Is… is he suggesting that if I find a lump of, like, Humanite and give my Digivice to Pan, I’ll turn into a wizard or something?  Because I could work with that.

In other news, I am going home for Christmas – and since I live about as far from home as I can get while still being on the same planet, this means spending most of a day on a plane.  This will probably delay my progress a bit.  Just so you know.

Ridiculous quote log:

“A Dusk Ball makes every battle sunny!  Don’t you agree?
Um… no?

“Pokéballs are round!  The world is also round!”
Are you suggesting some sort of connection here?
“Win or lose, Pokéballs remain round!”
Yours won’t for long if you keep yakking.

On Being Followed

You know, in the old days, having “followers” was a big deal.  It meant someone was willing to pick up all their stuff and literally follow you around, listening to your wisdom and carrying out your whims.  There was also the other kind of follower, which was the kind of person who followed you from a distance while wearing concealing robes, blending into crowds and ducking out of sight every time you turned around – but you often didn’t know about those until it was too late.  If you had the good kind, it meant you’d really made it (come to think of it, if you had the bad kind it often meant you’d made it as well, but not always for the reasons you might have hoped).  Today any old schmuck can get a dozen of the things.  You need to have a few more than that before you can claim to have done anything interesting.

Tumblr tells me I now have three hundred followers.  I have successfully conned three hundred people into listening to my awful bulls#!t on a semi-regular basis!  I am genuinely surprised to learn that there are that many people in the world.  That is probably more people than I would be able to feed if you all came to my apartment (please don’t do that as I doubt you would fit and also I don’t own a couch).  And that’s just the people with Tumblr accounts – the vast majority of the questions I receive are anonymous, so it’s possible there are a lot more of you; I don’t really know.  I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m not very influential in the grand scheme of things but considering that I originally started this blog basically for the amusement of my friends, many of whom don’t even play Pokémon, I think that’s pretty good, don’t you?

I am certain that if my mentors in the classics department were aware of my double life, they would immediately kick me out and ship me back to New Zealand for the audacity of drawing self-worth from anything other than research.  However, I had an odd realisation the other day: that the questions I answer for my readers are far more numerous and often more difficult than the ones I answer for my students.  I think I may actually be making a greater contribution to society by nattering about Pokémon on the internet than I am as a PhD candidate (being an academic, of course, is not a real job – it’s a demanding hobby which you sometimes get paid for).  So, you know, I think I’m going to keep doing it.  After all, three hundred people on the internet can’t be wrong!

So I feel like Stantler is one of those Pokemon Gamefreak doesn’t care about. It’s normal-type, and weaker that other similar Pokemon like Tauros, so I wanted to come up with an exclusive move and am curious about what you think. The move is called Doom Bell, where Stantler vibrates its horns to release an eerie tone that will faint the opponent if Stantler isn’t knocked out before the end of the turn. The move can only have 3 PP and fails if the opponent is switched in during that turn.

Hmm.

It’s… kind of an all-or-nothing tactic?  Like, in theory, a Stantler with a Focus Sash can kill absolutely anything with this move, barring entry hazards, weather damage and multi-hit attacks, which strikes me as a terrible thing to give to any Pokémon.  The smart thing for the opponent to do is always to switch out against Stantler until it runs out of Doom Bell PP – which means that the smart thing for Stantler to do is never actually to use Doom Bell, and instead to exploit the fact that very few Pokémon will willingly stay in against it by spamming Calm Mind or Thunder Wave.  You get this irritating game of chicken, where Stantler is daring an opponent to stay in, try to kill him, and risk being Doom Belled, and the opponent is daring Stantler to use Doom Bell and risk running out of PP for it without killing anything.  Worse, it’s clearly a very good idea for Stantler with this move to have Substitute as well – so the opponent is in a situation where they can either switch out and risk letting Stantler set up a free Substitute, making him even more annoying to deal with, or not switch out and risk instant death.  I actually think a lot of Stantler might wind up not having Doom Bell at all – just something along the lines of [Calm Mind | Psyshock | Thunderbolt | Substitute/Energy Ball], keeping one of the attacks secret until very late in the game, and just exploiting the fear of the possibility of Doom Bell, since optimal tactics for the damn thing involve not using it.  I’m… not convinced it’s a good idea.

If it’s any consolation, Stantler’s not… that bad.  His movepool is solid and he has two great abilities; his stats are just a bit lacklustre.

Also… why a bell?  As far as I know Stantler doesn’t have any sonic powers or any flavour related to bells or ringing… he doesn’t even learn Heal Bell.

What inspired you to be refer to yourself as Pokemaniacal ole chap. wot wot

Well, point of nomenclature first; I don’t refer to myself as Pokémaniacal and never have.  The blog is Pokémaniacal; I am Chris, or Pokémaniac Chris to you – which is obviously just the standard class + name format the games use for naming trainers.  Anyway, I figured if the adjectival form of “maniac” is “maniacal” then the adjectival form of “Pokémaniac” must be “Pokémaniacal” and there you have it.  As for why I thought it was an appropriate name… well, read almost any of my entries and take a wild guess.

Is Pokémon your favorite franchise? Are there any you also enjoy? Also what makes you keep returning to the series?

For the first part, refer to this question from a few days ago: http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/post/69464174209/first-off-thank-you-for-the-amazing-content-ive

As for what keeps me coming back… hell, I don’t know.  I think by this point it’s mostly force of habit and sheer bloodymindedness.  The bastards have brainwashed me.  That, and I just like thinking about it sideways; it’s fun constructing arguments about culture and ethics in this universe.

In the first generation Red and Blue, pokemon lacked even happiness and similar features. However over the generations and addition to pokemon amie now, we saw an increase of pokemon’s side of things. Do you think giving pokemon some more varied behaviors other than just “obedience” trope would better single player aspect of the game? Choice too like what if the pokemon wants to be released? Or forced captures or pokemon just suddenly popping in and joining you? Would that be worse?

Better?

It would be different, and it would be more complicated.  I mean, ultimately, a lot of the things you’re suggesting would be the beginnings of giving every individual Pokémon a basic AI – which… you know… would not be easy; I mean, I’m no programmer, but some people have hundreds of the bloody things running round on one game.  If Pokémon decide that they want to be released completely at random, it’d just be annoying; there needs to be some kind of actual decision-making framework in there.  Similarly, Pokémon popping out of nowhere at random and joining you for no reason doesn’t add anything.  You need a system where individual Pokémon can react to stimuli in different ways and let past experiences influence their future actions, which would be kinda complicated.  Having to manage the personalities of six different Pokémon would also make it a very different kind of game.  There’s probably some middle ground in there between “Byzantine” and “pointless,” but I think it’d be tremendously easy to get stuff like this very wrong.  I’m okay with continuing to take this kind of thing slowly.