Anonymous asks:

Is it me, or does it seem like the Kanto-Johto superregion hold a lot of influence over the rest of the Pokémon world? Like, Poké Balls started in Johto, then modernized, industrialized, and commercialized by Silph Co. in Kanto (who also made the Master Ball). The Kanto and Johto Professors created the Pokédex and discovered Pokémon Eggs, respectively. The PC system was first invented by a Johto guy who also works in Kanto. What’s going on here, from an in-universe perspective?

I’m hesitant to assign too much importance to something that has a really obvious real-world explanation – i.e. those regions were first, and in Pokémon’s early days there was no certainty that there ever would be other regions, so we find explanations for a lot of important core concepts there.  Also, like, Bill gets a lot of the credit, but every other region has a tech expert who’s supposed to have worked on the PC storage system with him.  Pokéballs… well, there are regions that still don’t use them, right?  Like Fiore, and Almia.  And Pokémon training predates Pokéballs, probably by quite a bit.  Wherever the first ones were used (which I agree is probably Johto, though I don’t think that’s ever actually been confirmed officially), the convenience of the new technology probably caused it to spread very quickly, with little deliberate drive from the creators, and the lifestyles and ways of Pokémon training associated with the technology would have spread too.  Pokémon trainers of the world might have been a much more diverse bunch before Pokéballs were introduced.

Anonymous asks:

What would you say are the pros and cons of each set of remakes? Which set is your favorite?

Well, mostly I just think they’ve gotten better over time.  Fire Red and Leaf Green were almost just Red and Blue with better graphics and third generation mechanics; the Sevii stuff is nice but doesn’t feel like it adds anything fundamentally new.  Heart Gold and Soul Silver add a little bit of characterisation to Team Rocket (though not quite enough, in my opinion) and a couple of cool new features, most prominently the walking Pokémon.  And Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby are just really neat games in their own right; some areas are completely reimagined, the plot and main characters are a lot more compelling than the in the original games, and they even improve on X and Y with things like the Eon Flute and the ability to sneak up on wild Pokémon.  Which… well, makes sense, since the designers have more experience and are building off their previous work.

Anonymous asks:

Bulbasaur is slightly curious, no? Why do you think the devs decided to give a starting Pokemon a dual type? It risked confusing new players, and there’s nothing about the design that particularly screams “Poison-type” anyway.

Ehhhh I don’t know about that.  Poison has no interactions with Fire and Water, so it doesn’t mess with the basic starter trio at all, which is how they teach type interactions, and new players will meet dual-type Pokémon on literally the first route anyway (Pidgey is Normal/Flying).  It’s true that Bulbasaur doesn’t really need to be Poison-type, and I’m tempted to put that down to Game Freak not having finished figuring out what Grass-types actually were yet. Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

If the Pokemon universe had an all out war between regions, which region(s) do you think will survive and which would fall? I’m not really talking about nuclear bombs and guns and stuff like that but the species of Pokemon in that region and how well they do against other Pokemon from other regions, the competency of the gym leaders, elite four, and champion, etc.

The thing about Pokémon trainers is they make terrible soldiers.  They all have wildly different capabilities, so it’s difficult to assign them tactical and operational roles.  They’re competitive and a lot of them have huge egos, so they tend to have poor discipline and unit cohesion.  Their individual battle styles and the different powers of their Pokémon will often work at cross-purposes if they haven’t been training together extensively. Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

I’ve got a challenge for you, if you have the time! Your hatred for Nosepass and Probopass is legendary around these parts of Tumblr (by which I mean your blog). How then would you ‘fix’ them to make them more interesting to you? So a challenge along the lines of your suggested improvements for the Top Ten Worst Pokémon! (don’t worry, we’ll do good ol’ Garbodor another day)

ohhhhhhhhhh goddddddddd

whyyyyyyyy

Okay, well… part of the problem is, the most interesting thing about Nosepass and Probopass is probably their link to the cardinal directions, but that link goes through the dumbest thing about Nosepass and Probopass – their giant red magnetic noses.  Also, it’s just bizarre to have a Pokémon that can only ever face directly north (how do they even fight like that?), and I kind of want some excuse to give them multiple faces, so that they “face” both north and south, or in all four cardinal directions, but then doing that would force us to abandon the cool moai inspiration. Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Litten, Torracat and Incineroar

I have a little personal conjecture about how Incineroar was designed.

Litten
Litten

Game Freak deeply, sincerely, earnestly didn’t mean to make a fourth Fire/Fighting starter Pokémon.  They were just going to sit down and come up with some unique, entertaining and vaguely Hawaiian-inspired Fire-type.  But then Incineroar just rose up, unbidden, out of the primal mists of Game Freak’s collective id, embedded himself in their tortured psyches, and refused to leave.  Aware that they were making another Fire/Fighting starter Pokémon, but horrified by their inability to stop, they desperately called on Yveltal for help, and the vicious and cunning death god answered their prayers by corrupting Incineroar into a brutal Dark-type.

I mean, obviously some of that is speculative, but I think the general outline is close. Continue reading “Litten, Torracat and Incineroar” →

Anonymous

Now that you’re done with your play through, mind sharing your thoughts and theories on Anabel? I’m not asking for a formal review on her or anything as I know you have a lot of other things planned, but outside of the Epilogue bit you wrote, do you have anything to say on her appearance? Why they chose her, what it all means? It was a really unexpected appearance!

Anabel… I think she’s there at least partly because she isn’t in Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby, and they wanted to do something with her.  She’s sort of the unofficial leader of the Frontier Brains in Emerald, and does seem to have an affinity for legendary Pokémon, using more of them in the Battle Frontier than any of her colleagues except for Brandon.  They might also have felt it was important to include characters from Hoenn who could act as assurance that Mega Evolution isn’t gone for good (Anabel can use Mega Alakazam, Mega Lucario or Mega Latios in the Battle Tree).  She seems like she may be a Psychic-type specialist, so she sort of makes sense for the vaguely X-Files/Men In Black-ish Ultra Beast incursion plotline.  Could also be that the game designers have big plans for her in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.

Anonymous asks:

how broken would a grass/dragon mega serperior w contrary and draco meteor be?

Hmm.  Well, Serperior is pretty good now with just Contrary, Leaf Storm, and basically no other special movepool to speak of, and Grass has terrible type coverage.  The only other point of comparison is Malamar’s Superpower, which is a lot weaker for several reasons.  I don’t know if it’d quite be broken broken because un-STABed Draco Meteor isn’t going to be that much better than Leaf Storm a lot of the time, but it’d definitely be top tier.

EDIT: Derp, misread the question.  Eh, a Grass/Dragon mega evolution would be strong, but I don’t think *that* much more ridiculous than a bunch of other mega evolutions, and you get eaten alive by Ice Shard.  Also, would Serperior actually be able to learn Draco Meteor anyway?  Only Dragon-types can use the move tutor, and Ampharos can’t, despite having a Dragon-type mega evolution.