Toucannon asks:

So, MegaEvolution is something of a base-breaking point for pokemon fans, but you’ve been known to mention it being a good thing for some pokemon (in terms of improved useability). Thus, I ask: which of the 50 or so existing megaevolutions would you say are necessary and worth keeping, and which ones are superfluous and shouldn’t have been introduced at all?

Well… based on that particular criterion, probably fewer than half of them were a good idea, maybe even fewer than a third, which is a pretty terrible success rate. Terrible enough, in fact, that I think it’s pretty clear this rationale wasn’t really a major part of Game Freak’s process for deciding which Pokémon to give Mega Evolutions to (even though it’s something I like), and therefore arguably not a good way of judging them. Particularly in the first round in X and Y, Mega Evolutions primarily went to Pokémon that were already fan favourites, like the Kanto starters, Mewtwo and Gyarados, and most of those were already at least decent. But… well, you asked, so okay, let’s make a list…

Continue reading →

Claydol asks:

Steven stone’s mega Metagross hits like a truck doesn’t he?

He sure do. No Earthquake, though, unlike in the original Ruby and Sapphire, which makes him substantially easier to outmanoeuvre in terms of type coverage. Giga Impact also creates a lot of openings for your Pokémon to come in and hit him hard before he can recover. I have memories of much greater difficulty with the old non-mega Metagross, but that’s partly because on my first playthrough of Sapphire I had no idea what type the damn thing was, and pre-generation VI Steel-types resist pretty much everything (also I had a Sableye in my party because I didn’t understand the game very well yet).

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:

Do you get the impression Gen VI was cut short? Looking back there’s a lot about it that seems unfinished. I’m not the first to think that Zygarde should have had its own game, but the Gen VI events for Diancie, Hoopa and Volcanion are really underwhelming; all they unlock in XY/ORAS is a bit of extra dialogue. Feels like a lot of wasted potential. The fact that Gen VII only has two event Pokemon (and hackers haven’t found a Marshadow event in S/M yet) makes me think this gen will be short too.

A little, yeah. Mostly what I think is strange is that they built such a unique subsystem for Zygarde with so many interesting little features, and then never really did anything with it. Clearly some of it was already planned when they produced X and Y; Thousand Arrows and Thousand Waves are both in the code for the generation VI games but were never made obtainable, and Zygarde’s Pokédex data hints at a really important role that it ought to have in the conflict of X and Y. Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

Which other legendaries do you think are likely to get Primal forms?

Well, at the moment, none. I mean, I always avoid spoilers in the lead-up to new Pokémon games, so maybe I’m out of the loop on something that’s been revealed for Sun and Moon, but so far I feel like we’ve been given every reason to think that primal reversion is something specific to Groudon and Kyogre.

Rivals, part 8: May, Brendan and Wally

…Jim, do you feel like we’re forgetting something?

No. Why?

I don’t know. Just… I have this nagging feeling we’re supposed to have done something.

Probably nothing important.

Hmm. Okay; if you say so.

Well, we never did do the last entry in that rivals series. About Mrayndan and Wally. So, I mean, it could be that.

The what now?

We were talking about all the rivals? You know, like how you did that series on the Champions years ago?

…OH S#!T!

Continue reading →