I think when they get to a really high number of Pokemon, perhaps after Pokemon X and Y, they might move to a new time period, maybe in the past or future, where many current Pokemon either don’t exist yet, or have become extinct depending on the time, then release a new Gen, kind of like starting from scratch. What do you think about the idea?

Do I think they’ll do it, or would I like it if they did?

If there’s one thing I know about Game Freak, it’s that they like to stick with what they know will work. I doubt they would abandon their setting lightly. Not to say that it’s impossible; they seem to have been very consciously trying to confound our expectations during the last generation or two (and, of course, in a spin-off game anything goes), but I think it’s unlikely.

Anyway, I’m biased, naturally; I’m a history guy, so I would very much like to see a Pokémon game set in the past. I have always felt that Pokémon is a game about discovery and exploration, and the fifth generation, particularly the second pair of games, seem at times to be going out of their way to imply that there’s really not that much left to discover. Setting a game in the past would get away from all that. I also think it could be a great deal of fun to work around all the modern conveniences we’re used to from the newer games. Fewer Pokémon Centres in the past – maybe you have to help set them up? No PC storage system – carrier Pidgey? Most Pokéballs are going to be made from Apricorns – gotta find a time and place to cultivate them and create more effective strains. Medicine? Probably going to rely a lot on herbs and berries. There’s a lot you could do with a game like that.

so someone already asked if there was a pokemon from the kanto region that you denied the right to exist and you said no or not really my question what is the worst kanto pokemon not one that doesn’t deserve to exist just one that strikes you as lame

For the benefit of other readers, this is in reference to this question:
http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/post/37543714121/im-probably-a-generic-question-asker-seeing-as-my

I should probably clarify what I said on that topic, since I am a little worried you have gotten the wrong idea. I don’t think the Kanto Pokémon are in any sense superior to those of later generations. I certainly don’t think that all of them are well designed. Indeed, I think several of them are in many ways quite poor. However, for a variety of reasons, I don’t think you can necessarily judge them according to the same standard as the later additions, which makes them very difficult for me to deal with.

Anyway, since you asked…

I have an exceedingly low opinion of Krabby and Kingler. So, these Pokémon are crabs? Great; what do they do? "Crab things.“ Um… anything else? "No. Why would they need to do anything else?” Sandshrew and Sandslash, likewise, have always struck me as rather bland. I suppose I would be remiss if I did not bring up Fearow, Pidgeot and their associated spawn, because although they have the advantage of being the first in the interminable lineage of generic bird Pokémon and therefore have a better claim to legitimacy than any of the rest, they’re still simply not that interesting when you compare them to the likes of Dodrio and Farfetch’d. Raticate is perhaps worth consideration as possibly the only Pokémon in existence with absolutely no supernatural powers whatsoever; he’s just a really big rat.

The other annoying thing Red and Blue did was take some of the most obscure Pokémon in the game, the species you could only get one of, or only a few with great difficulty, and decide that they would be, absolutely without question, not worth it. Farfetch’d is one (also a cool design cursed to have no useful skills at all), Lickitung another, Porygon probably the worst of all.

I could go on, but I’ve probably pissed off enough people already.

White 2 Playthrough Journal, episode 7: OHGODSPIDERS

NB: There are no pictures because Tumblr is being a jerk. Will attempt to do something about it later.

The Castelia City Gym I remember was… odd. Its residents, a group of clowns who specialise in Bug Pokémon, had modelled the place after a beehive, with hexagonal rooms divided from each other with walls of gluey honey, which challengers could walk through, but only with difficulty. I always found these honey walls tremendously bothersome, since they don’t actually present a puzzle to be solved or a maze to navigate the way most Gym features do, but still slow you down significantly as you move around the building. When Jim and I step into the Castelia Gym, we note that the honey walls are nowhere to be seen, and realise that Burgh has been busy over the last two years – and the other Gym Leaders probably have been as well. The inside of the Castelia Gym is now wreathed in fine white thread, as though some enormous spider has taken up residence – and, hell, for all we know, that’s exactly what’s happened; Burgh’s probably been making some new friends. With this in mind, we enter – slowly, carefully. The clowns are nowhere to be seen. Perhaps Burgh has eaten them. Such a… tragedy. Yes. Quite. The ground level of the Gym is empty, but for a few woven cocoons, connected to the upper levels by long, thick cables of silk. One is inaccessible, separated off by an impassable silken thicket, but the closest cocoon seems to have two openings in it. Jim and I glance at each other and unclip Jaime and Ulfric’s Pokéballs from our belts before walking gingerly up to the thing. Jim touches it cautiously; his hand comes away sticky, but the cocoon doesn’t react. Hmm. Step by step, I move around the cocoon to examine the rounded opening, and-

OH DEAR LORD IT’S EATING ME!

Through some inexplicable force of suction, the cocoon draws me in, swallowing me whole before I can jump away and leaving behind nothing but a strangled screeching noise. I feel myself being dragged upward, though the silken ‘cable’ which I now realise is a hollow tube. Convinced that I have been snared by the monstrous spider Pokémon which has certainly taken over the Castelia Gym, I start kicking as forcefully as I can and try to twist my body around in hopes of wedging myself halfway up the tube. I pop open Jaime’s Pokéball, screaming through the muffling silk for him to cut us free with Razor Shell, and wrench my ensnared hand down to my belt in hopes of finding Barristan or Tyrion. I hear Jim, faintly, through the silk as he calls for a Cut from Ulfric. Jaime, now out of his ball, is squirming for his scalchops but can’t reach them with the sticky threads hindering his movements. Luckily, I manage to get my hand down as far as my waist and tap on another Pokéball, not much caring at this point whose it is. Success! Barristan bursts out and gives a low, distressed howl as he realises our predicament. Convinced that I have the way to freedom, I scream the words “Flame Wheel!” at the top of my lungs.

You can… probably imagine how the situation deteriorated from there.

Half an hour later, a rather mournful Burgh paces back and forth in front of us on the ground floor of the Gym. The walls and floors are built from a hardy construction polymer, and are a little blackened but largely undamaged. Unfortunately the webs, which apparently allow the Bug Pokémon and their trainers to move between floors, have been burnt completely to ashes, including Burgh’s spiderweb loft at the top of the building. It will take months, he wails, for the Ariados to repair the place, and he may never replace the paintings he had stashed in some of the cocoons. Jim points out diplomatically that no one has been seriously hurt (or at least, nothing a Burn Heal won’t fix) and suggests that a battle might take his mind off things. Burgh sighs and admits he’s probably right; if nothing else a good battle might at least inspire him to get started on some new paintings.

At some point during the… incident… Jim had called Falk out to help, and a slight misunderstanding with the Gym trainers had led to the poor Magby being surrounded by half a dozen angry Whirlipede and Swadloon and bludgeoned into submission; he is therefore in no condition to fight. Dovahkiin, however, is still fit and ready, and manages to handle all three of Burgh’s powerful Bug Pokémon – a Swadloon, a Dwebble, and a Leavanny – with skilful use of Counter and a little medicinal support from Jim. Burgh hands Jim an Insect Badge, with a brief remark of congratulation, and gives his Pokéballs to a clown to have his Pokémon healed. He then turns to me, slouched against the wall with Jaime and Barristan still at my side. He attempts to give me a friendly smile, but it comes out as more of a grimace. He starts to say something, but chokes on the words. He finally throws a second Insect Badge at my feet, makes a mournful rattling noise in his throat, and leaves the building.

Victory is mine!

Obviously that didn’t go exactly as planned but it’s still worth a celebratory moonlit walk in Castelia Plaza! Jim and I get our Pokémon checked out at the Pokémon Centre, then stroll down Castelia Street to the plaza. Even at this late hour, the main streets are still bustling, though the plaza itself is fairly quiet… quiet enough that Jim instantly recognises the curious-looking scientist he met in the Castelia sewers the day before and points him out for me. He notices us looking and, rather than fleeing as he did in the sewers, begins to approach us. Jim quietly warns me to refuse any candy offered to me and keep my eyes peeled for a white van with tinted windows. I adjust my belt and casually tap my fingers against Sansa’s Pokéball as our new friend gets closer. He introduces himself as Colress, and compliments Jim once again on his battling in the Castelia sewers, before asking to see our Pokémon.

No.

“Are you sure? But this is,” he strikes a dramatic pose, his notebook clasped against his chest, staring intensely into the night sky, “for science!”

…hell no.

Colress thinks for a moment, and offers us a chocolate bar in exchange for letting him see our Pokémon.

Ooh! Gimme!

Jim protests, but I happily accept the proffered candy and munch on it as Colress examines Sansa, who bleats at him and crackles a little bit, but doesn’t attack. He proclaims his delight at seeing a Pokémon so strong and confident, and explains that he studies ways for humans to “bring out the power of Pokémon,” something Jim and I appear to be doing. Colress tells us that he’s heading North, out of Castelia City, and invites us to follow him for a Pokémon battle to further his research. He then turns and leaves without another word. I want to follow see what he’s on about; if nothing else, there might be more candy. Jim admonishes me for taking chocolate from a stranger, but admits that he’s curious to know what Colress wants (he’s probably just jealous because he didn’t get any candy), so we set off for Route 4 together.

If gamefreak put you in charge of making the next game outside of the “Pokemon __ version” Gym-Badge seeking titles… what kind of game would you make?

People ask me this periodically. I always wonder what sort of answer they’re expecting. I mean, you do realise you’re talking to a guy who will spend three days writing a 2000-word essay on what Pokémon gender actually means? Asking me “how would you do the next Pokémon game?” is liable to produce a small book.

I have been meaning to do this, though. For quite some time, in fact. I keep coming across other things that I want to do first but, damnit, enough! It’s next on my list! Just as soon as I finish narrating my journey through White 2. I suppose with the oncoming release of X and Y, the topic is rather apropos, if nothing else.

What is your favorite non-starter Grass type?

My favourite Pokémon – period – is Vileplume. I admit it’s purely a matter of sentimentality; there’s nothing particularly wonderful about her design. I just like it. I suppose I’ve always considered Vileplume the archetypal Grass Pokémon – calm and gentle, but filled with some of the most horrid disabling attacks and support abilities you can think of. The choice of the Rafflesia arnoldii as a design base is quite appropriate – the flower is striking, even beautiful, but its stench is proverbial.

Stuffs

I have finally done something I should really have started a long time ago and made it possible to look through questions people have asked me on the ‘post categories’ page. I’ve broken all of them down into groups like ‘questions about specific Pokémon,’ ‘questions about the movies and anime,’ etc and will continue to slot future questions into these groups as I answer them, so if for whatever reason you want to browse what people have asked me in the past, it will maybe be a bit easier now? I’ve also made categories on that page for the ongoing playthrough journal, and for my one-off entries, which despite being (in my opinion) some of my best work haven’t been accessible from that page before.

Yay!

Regarding the current stage of our Pokémon-designing project-thing – I have received four art submissions so far, but would like to wait and see if I get any more, so I’ll hold off on posting the entries and creating a poll until… let’s say the night of the 27th (New Zealand time), so if you really want to draw a lava-squid of doom but haven’t done so already, try and do it tomorrow!

Ok, so leveling up is more or less just a mechanical way to describe a Pokemon’s effort and overall “readiness” to evolve (some restrictions and exceptions apply, obviously). Which makes IVs and EVs very easy to explain – in fact, they are the system we’re talking about. But….what’s Pokerus, then??

Well, I would like to note that IVs are permanent and unchanging, so I think they represent, rather, a Pokémon’s genetic makeup and any natural variance in aptitude. Otherwise, though, yes, that’s more or less where we seem to be at the moment.

So… Pokérus.

Well, they describe it as a virus, which seems very odd since we normally think of viruses as malicious parasites, not as symbiotes, which the Pokérus clearly is – it dramatically improves a Pokémon’s ability to learn and grow. What this makes me think of is an evolutionary process that seems to have happened (it’s a rather difficult hypothesis to prove, but a lot of biologists like the idea) billions of years ago when the first cells were getting their start. See, in most plant and animal cells, there are little organelles (cell structures) that we use for breaking down complex chemicals to produce energy; these are called mitochondria. Plant cells also have another kind called a chloroplast, which is responsible for photosynthesis (storing light energy in complex chemicals so the mitochondria can break them down later). Anyway, here’s the thing: these structures reproduce on their own, independently of the rest of the cell, using their own DNA (fun fact – although your nuclear DNA is a mixture of your parents’, your mitochondrial DNA is an exact copy of your mother’s, a fact which is extremely useful to evolutionary biologists – look up ‘mitochondrial Eve’ some time). What this seems to suggest is that they were once completely independent organisms which were somehow swallowed up by larger cells and, instead of being digested or whatever, assimilated themselves into the larger cells and started trading services – energy for shelter. I think the Pokérus is an example of the same thing in progress. Give it another fifty million years, and all Pokémon will be born with it. For now, though, it’s an independent organism, barely capable of surviving on its own, that can insert itself into a Pokémon’s cells and, in exchange for a place to live, can streamline certain aspects of the way a Pokémon’s body functions. Pokérus can produce exotic hormones that enhance a Pokémon’s awareness and ability to process information and commit it to memory, enhancing its capacity to learn from the battles it fights (hence the doubling of received Effort points). Perhaps they even enhance a Pokémon’s connection with whatever weird sources of power they drawn on for their attacks.

Hmm… which might mean… hmm.

White 2 Playthrough Journal, episode 6: The Plot Thickens

Team Plasma in their new trendy get-up. I hurry through the streets of Virbank City towards the ferry terminal, my eyes darting left and right, ever-watchful for Stu Deeoh’s accountants, whose wrath shall surely follow me to the ends of the earth. As I safely draw near to the docks, however, I am confronted with an obstacle: a six-way Pokémon battle in the open streets. To my surprise, Jim, Hugh and Roxie are all involved, and are being pressed hard by a trio of ginger ninjas. No, really; I mean actual ninjas who happen to be ginger. I realise that I know one of the ginger ninjas – the fellow who lobbed a DVD at me back on Floccesy Ranch – and reason that this must be Team Plasma. I briefly weigh up in my mind the relative importance of following Pokémon League rules, helping my friends, my distaste for Roxie, fighting crime, and my own massive laziness and apathy. Eventually I realise that Hugh, Jim and Roxie are battling with Pignite, Falk the Magby and Whirlipede, respectively, and that Pignite and Falk will be absolutely fine if I tell Barristan to scorch the area.

When they realise they’re outnumbered, the Team Plasma goons quickly recall their Pokémon and scatter. Hugh, not missing a beat, chases after one of them, screaming something about never forgiving them. Hmm. Forgiving them for what, exactly? Come back, Hugh; I think we’re on the verge of a real breakthrough here! No, never mind, he’s gone. Well, now that that’s taken care of with absolutely no negative consequences, I guess we’re off to Castelia City now, right? No… no, Jim wants to help Hugh look for Team Plasma. Come on; are we running a charity here now? I elect to wait at the ferry terminal for him to get bored. Jim, meanwhile, pursues the Team Plasma goons out of Virbank City into Route 20. He manages to track down one of them, about halfway back to Floccesy Town, and knocks him to the ground with Elisif’s Thunder Wave. As he flops around helplessly, Jim manages to extract a little information – the man was trying to come around and head back to the coastline. Unfortunately, the Team Plasma grunt manages to flail onto a hillside and starts rolling before Jim can get anything else out of him. He disappears into the bushes at the bottom of the hill, and has recovered from the Thunder Wave and scarpered by the time Jim gets down there. Still, he and Hugh agree that the man’s comment can only mean Team Plasma are travelling by ship. They return to the ferry terminal and are met there by Roxie. Roxie thanks both of them on behalf of Virbank City and presents them with a pair of Cut HMs. She presents me with a death glare and a silent threat to break her guitar over my head if I ever return to her city again, then departs. Well, it’s not like I wanted that particular HM anyway. The three of us board the ferry at last, and reach Castelia City before the day is out.

Castelia City, in all its glory.

Castelia City is as absurd and wonderful as I remember from Black and White – the largest city in Unova, possibly in the entire Pokémon world, teeming with people and packed with businesses as absurd as they are numerous. I pay a visit to the Battle Company, a huge corporation whose workers are devoted entirely to having Pokémon battles with each other and with visitors to their building, and Passerby Analytics, a group whose name, I can only assume, comes from the fact that they do absolutely no work themselves, but instead enlist random volunteers to conduct surveys for them. We indulge in a few battles in the city, and little Tyrion evolves into a Whirlipede. Eventually Jim suggests that maybe we should try to hunt down Team Plasma, and decides to seek the assistance of the Castelia Gym Leader. I grudgingly agree and we head for the Gym – only to find it closed for business. Luckily, help is at hand, in the form of… good grief, is that Iris? The Opelucid City Gym Leader from White version? What on earth is she doing here? Is she after Team Plasma too? Oh, whatever. Iris confidently explains that she knows exactly where everything shady goes down in Castelia City (I can only presume she’s involved in half of it) and leads us to the easternmost pier of the city docks, where one can enter…

…the sewer level.

Why is there always a sewer level?

I refuse, point blank, to enter the sewer level. The Virbank Gym was bad enough. Jim and Hugh can muck around down there with the rats and the sludge monsters and goodness knows what else; I am going to the Café Sonata for antipasto and a glass of sweet white. Iris doesn’t want to enter the sewer level either but she tries to hide it by claiming she’s standing guard on the surface, the sneaky little brat, so I do not invite her to join me.

The Sewer Level.

Jim and Hugh enter the sewer level and, in fact, find Team Plasma remarkably quickly. There are only two grunts in the area, who fall very quickly under their joint assault and flee the scene. Burgh, the Castelia Gym Leader, emerges from the tunnel near where the goons were standing and declares that there are no other suspicious characters in the area. Hugh’s thirst for vengeance is slaked for now, and he leaves, as does Burgh, who is returning to his Gym – well and good, but it leaves us no closer to finding their damn ship. What kind of Bug Pokémon Master doesn’t keep a String Shot or Spider Web handy for just this kind of situation? Immediately after Burgh leaves, having declared that there are no other suspicious characters in the tunnel, an extremely suspicious character steps out of the tunnel – the blonde white-coated scientist fellow who appeared in the games’ title sequence. He reveals that he had been watching Jim and Hugh battle, and was impressed by their power, but slips away before Jim can call out a Pokémon to detain him for further questions. Since Burgh has now been revealed as just about the most incompetent Gym Leader in the history of ever, Jim elects to remain in the sewer level for a while to make absolutely sure there’s no one else suspicious down here. In fact, he finds that there are a great many suspicious people in the sewer level, though none of them seem to be affiliated with Team Plasma. The tunnel, which is known as the Relic Passage, turns out to have been built by an ancient civilisation and links up to… somewhere, but Jim isn’t able to get very far inside. He does find an extremely dodgy scientist who asks him, apparently in total seriousness, whether he is part of the sewer. As fascinated as Jim is by the Relic Passage, he leaves as quickly as possible to search the sewers, making a mental note to report the scientist to the nearest asylum.

The sewers turn out to be full of Pokémon trainers, one or two of whom appear to have legitimate reason to be down there, though most of them just like hanging around in sewers. Jim finds no trace of Team Plasma, although in one room, he finds a female scientist who claims to be attempting to create medicines from the venom of Poison Pokémon and other substances from the sewers. She proclaims her day’s experiment a minor success, and hands Jim an oddly murky-looking Potion to test. Jim smiles charmingly at her, saying that he’ll try it out later, leaves the room as quickly as possible, and promptly tips the Potion back into the sewer water from which most of it probably came. He elects to get the hell out of this hive of madness and returns to the surface, where Iris congratulates him on whatever it was he just did and wanders off. Jim scrapes the sewer muck off his shoes and decides to find me. I have just finished my meal, and meet him on Narrow Street as I head back towards the Pokémon Centre. We take a moment to discuss recent events before turning in. Team Plasma is back, clearly, and they seem to have discarded their former facade of a movement for social change and Pokémon rights; now they’re just perfectly standard Pokémon thieves. That’s fine by me; it makes them someone else’s problem. Let the police deal with them. Jim points out, not unreasonably, that teenaged Pokémon trainers are the closest thing this universe has to a police force. I mutter that this is clearly the public’s own fault and the inevitable price of their low taxation, and propose returning to Aspertia as soon as we can use Fly to bypass Virbank City. For now, though, we’re in Castelia… so we may as well stay long enough to take on that cloud cuckoo of a Gym Leader…

Are there any pokemon from the original Unova project that you would now change rescind your final verdict on, whether pass or fail?

Probably several… there are quite a few that I was indecisive about the first time, you see. For most of them, there are good points and bad points – I believe I even had one or two positive things to say about Emolga. I think you can probably tell by reading the entries which ones I was sure about and which ones I could have gone either way on, but… hmm…

I may have been too soft on Liepard, Haxorus, Cinccino, Stoutland and maybe Emboar.

Conversely, I may have been too hard on Druddigon, Krookodile, Musharna, Stunfisk and the Musketeer quartet.

And then there’s Garbodor, whom I still haven’t changed my mind about, though I grudgingly concede that he may not have deserved quite the level of vitriol I hurled at him in ‘11 (dear gods, I can’t say ‘last year’ anymore when talking about my Unova reviews…).

I almost think it may have been a mistake to use the ‘final verdict’ structure, since it detracts attention a little from the fact that, again, there are good points and bad points (well, for most of them anyway). Heatmor, for instance, has a wonderfully mad design, but happens to be terrible at fighting. Conversely, I’m not going to deny that Conkeldurr is strong, but I still don’t think we needed Conkeldurr and Machamp, and I remain convinced that the clown nose thing is appallingly stupid. It also fails to highlight just how much worse, say, Maractus is than Klinklang or Cryogonal. If I review every Pokémon in X and Y (do I have a choice?) I might choose a somewhat different format.

I’ve recently came up with a theory regarding the capture of pokemon. One of pokemon’s greatest questions is why you can’t capture a wild pokemon once it has “fainted”. What I’m thinking, though, is that it’s not that you can’t catch them, but that capturing a fainted pokemon is considered unethical in the pokemon universe. Probably because they’re in no condition to resist capture in that state which robs them of whatever rights people give pokemon. How solid would you say this theory is?

I think it’s so solid I wrote about it in October.

http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/post/34093585438/the-ethics-of-pokemon-training