Anonymous asks:

You’ve been asked about the Pokémon that you think should be retyped. What about Pokémon that should be re….Abilitied? (???) Gens VI and especially VII have been switching up a lot of old Pokémon’s Abilities, so this seems a more feasible change to happen rather than retyping, no? So, with our hopes up, which Pokémon would YOU like to have one (or both) of their Abilities changed, and to what?

Well, honestly the possibility that leaps most immediately to mind for me is the one that’s probably least likely to happen – namely, giving all the starter Pokémon different abilities.  I understand as a design choice why we have Overgrow, Blaze and Torrent, because they’re abilities that, as a new player, you don’t have to think about very hard, if at all.  But gods they’re boring.  In the same vein, a lot of legendary Pokémon, particularly from the earlier generations, just have Pressure as a kind of default ability, which is actually really weird because, despite being an okay fit thematically, Pressure is a super-niche ability to actually use; most Pokémon don’t get very much out of having it.

Anonymous asks:

You know the little cemetery cutscene on Melemele, with the old woman on the Machamp? Her story about her late husband features a really interesting Pokémon – Poké Ball relationship. I am really curious as to what your thoughts are about it!

So the story, for the viewers at home, is as follows.  This old woman and her Machamp are visiting the grave of her husband, Machamp’s trainer.  He died in a car crash that likely would have claimed Machamp’s life as well, but he had the presence of mind to recall Machamp to its Pokéball at the last moment, protecting it.  Machamp subsequently threw away its own Pokéball and refused to use one again.

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Anonymous asks:

Oddish is based on the mandrake plant, which is cool, but none of its evolutions seem to retain this cultural influence. Now I KNOW you like Vileplume, but suppose you were given a chance to redesign Oddish’s evolutions so that they keep to their mandrake influence, how would you do it?

Honestly, for a while I kind of thought Oddish wasn’t actually based on mandrakes at all, but just had some coincidental similarities, because other than being a plant that looks like it has legs underground, there’s not really anything there.  I did then run over this line from the Yellow version Pokédex though: “If you try to yank it out of the ground, it shrieks horribly.”  That hasn’t ever been repeated, and to be honest the Yellow Pokédex has a lot of weird $#!t in it, so I kinda would still be happy to think that Oddish is independent from mandrakes, and that someone noticed the similarities during production on Yellow.  I sort of want to just say “give it Perish Song”; I think that’s enough of a nod.

Anonymous asks:

I hate asking anything non-Pokémon here (assuming you even answer another, I know this is a Pokémon blog-thing) but in response to that previous Star Wars question, you mentioned the many Bothans who died – wasn’t that to get the plans to the OTHER Death Star? I thought I distinctly remember that being the other Death Star, which was why they weren’t in the movie…

see this is why I’m a Pokémon nerd and not a Star Wars nerd

Anonymous:

If you were to make a themed team for Cynthia, what would you give her? Feel free to interpret any particular theme you feel is appropriate for her, and you can use Pokémon from any region you want, but you MUST keep her Garchomp.

Ehhhhhhmmmmm.  Cynthia likes mythical things and ancient mysteries and such.  Garchomp probably isn’t a Pokémon I would have chosen for that theme, given the option, but it is a big dragon, and dragons are magic, so close enough.  A lot of her other Pokémon already do have an appropriately mystic feel – Spiritomb, Lucario, Milotic… Roserade doesn’t fit; the Gastrodon she uses on Diamond and Pearl certainly doesn’t fit, though the Togekiss she replaces it with on Platinum is a bit better.  I would in principle want to replace them both with Pokémon that exist in Sinnoh.  I rather like Bronzong, which has the disadvantage of being Lucian’s signature Pokémon in Diamond and Pearl, but is workable if we just switch it out for Gallade on Lucian’s team (which is actually what happens in Platinum).  I’m tempted to go with a second Ghost- or Dark-type for the final slot… maybe Froslass, or Absol.

Anonymous asks:

What do you think of a region dedicated solely to Dragon type Pokemon? Where everything is/evolves into a Dragon type?

Iiiiiii kinda think that’s a very iffy idea from a gameplay perspective.  I mean, almost everything is super-effective against almost everything else, so the strategy gets much shallower.  And you’re limiting the possible design space needlessly with a requirement that everything be a dragon.  I don’t think we need a hundred new Dragon Pokémon.  What would even be the benefit of a single-type region, anyway?