Tag: game mechanics

If you had to retype any Pokemon, which ones would you do and to which types? Personally, I think Nosepass and Probopass should have been Rock/Electric, Marowak to be Ground/Fighting, Serperior to be Grass/Dragon, Gyarados either pure Water or Water/Dragon, Lucario to be Psychic/Fighting, and Dunsparce to be Normal/Ground.

If I had to?  That’s an odd stipulation.  Why am I being so cruelly compelled?

There are very, very few Pokémon whose typing actually upsets me.  I’m okay with Gyarados being a Flying-type, for instance, even though Gyarados can’t fly, since Gyarados’ physical design is based on a kite, and I’m not bothered by Lucario not being a Psychic-type, since the fact that Aura Sphere is a Fighting-type move seems to signify that his aura-related abilities are just qualitatively different from what Psychic Pokémon do.  If I’m going to jump in and start retyping things… well, it really depends on what I can get away with.  I could add Dark to Raticate, Arbok, Persian, Hypno, Gothitelle and Cofagrigus, Psychic to Golduck, Steel to Electrode and Porygon, Flying to Sceptile and Rock to Conkeldurr, swap Normal for Fighting on Farfetch’d and Braviary and Flying for Water on Masquerain, quietly erase Watchog from existence while no one is looking, and finish up by eradicating the Ground type completely and dividing all of its possessions between Normal, Rock and Fighting.

Or I could play it safe and just make Charizard Dragon/Fire.  Y’know, whatevs.

Do you think they should increase the number of moves a pokemon can use in future games, or do you think four is enough? I personally think having at least six available move slots would make the game much more strategic and enjoyable, but is that only because there’s some unknown consequence to it that I’m just not seeing, or is it just because of hardware limitations?

I’m going to go with a resounding ‘no’ on this one.  The thing about Pokémon is that most of the strategy happens before the battle actually starts, and is largely about how you allocate your resources – you get six slots for Pokémon, each of which has four slots for moves, one for an item and one for an ability.  You have to decide ahead of time what is most important to be prepared for and what you can do without, and spend your resources accordingly.  If you have done so with greater care and foresight than your opponent, you begin the battle at an advantage.  Relaxing the limitation on the number of moves a Pokémon can learn, I think, actually diminishes the game’s strategic elements.

This question has to do with the idea of a Wind Type, or to be more specific… changing Flying to Wind. For me I feel like Flying is a very weird “element” and Wind helps specify what exactly makes a Flying attack different than a Normal attack. And it helps decide what Pokemon actually NEED Wind as a type instead of Flying, as Flying is an overpopulated type. Take Jigglypuff, would you think it would make sense for the Balloon Pokemon to be a Wind Type?

Flying is weird, true.  It seems split into ‘bird’ Pokémon and attacks (Pidgeot, Pelipper, Honchkrow, Drill Peck, Pluck, Brave Bird, etc), ‘wind’ Pokémon and attacks (Drifblim, Jumpluff, Gust, Hurricane, Air Slash, etc), and Pokémon who just happen to be able to fly.  Then of course you have stuff like Dodrio, who is a bird who can’t fly, Flygon, who isn’t a Flying-type because she has two types already, despite being a Pokémon that flies with wings, and Gyarados, who is a Flying-type because he’s based on a kite, even though he cannot fly and, in fact, has no powers related to either wind or flight at all.  In fact, you can see from Missingno.’s data in Red and Blue that there was originally going to be a Bird type, which was apparently scrapped, and I know of at least one Fakemon website which splits the Flying type in this way.  It’s worth noting that, in Red and Blue, Gust was actually a Normal attack, while Whirlwind and Razor Wind still are – what this suggests is that Game Freak initially considered wind-related powers to be ‘unaligned,’ which shows a remarkable shift in their conception of the Flying type when you compare it to Tornadus from Black and White.

The trouble is that I can’t help but imagine Wind would be very small, as it stands.  Although there are several annoying exceptions, most Flying-types appear to be Flying-types because they can fly with wings.  I could definitely see Pidgeot being Wind/Flying instead of Normal/Flying, Jumpluff, as you note, would be a sensible candidate for Grass/Wind (along with Whimsicott?), Tornadus would certainly have to be a Wind-type (but where does that leave Thundurus and Landorus?), Drifblim, Tropius and maybe Mantine, Emolga and Sigilyph should go in there, but that seems to be about it, as far as I can see.  Shiftry is a possibility but you’d have to think long and hard about whether his wind powers are really more important than the characteristics that make him Grass/Dark.  I’m inclined to disagree with you on Jigglypuff, simply because she doesn’t actually have any wind powers at all; she just happens to be light enough to float on the wind.  Gyarados presents a similar problem, though I’d probably stick him into Wind for the hell of it.  Pokémon like Crobat, Gliscor, Vespiquen and Ledian, who aren’t birds but have no strong connection with Wind either, probably have to stay in Flying.

Like eliminating the Ground type, this is, in the end, something that I probably would have done if I’d been mucking around with Pokémon since its inception but wouldn’t really want to do now unless I were intent on completely ripping the games to pieces and starting practically from scratch.

Anonymous asks:

Wow, really loving all your articles and posts! That’s awesome that you like the Grass type; they don’t get enough love. But I gotta know: what’s your opinion on the Ground type in general? For the longest time it’s been my favorite (but that might be nostalgia talking since I used to love Sandshrew when I was 8). Now that I’ve looked over some of your posts about Pokemon designs….I do notice Ground has a lot of rather generic looking desert animals with no particular extraordinary powers, lol

Ground… Ground is sort of odd because, aside from Normal, it’s the element with the fewest proper defining characteristics.  Many of them are either subterranean or desert creatures – and let us note that these are two extremely different things, and that there is really no reason to clump them together while separating Rock.  This seems to be the deal for most Ground-type attacks, but not all Ground Pokémon are anything like this.  What, for instance, makes Marowak a Ground-type?  What makes Garchomp a Ground-type, other than having the Sand Veil ability (which is shared by Cacturne)?  What makes Nidoking and Nidoqueen Ground-types?  You mention Sandshrew, and I think perhaps it is worth noting that, as of his introduction in Red and Blue, Sandshrew never actually learned any Ground attacks on his own – Sand Attack being considered a Normal-type attack at the time, which really makes you wonder why they labelled Sandshrew a Ground-type in the first place.  In Gold and Silver, of course, Sand Attack became Ground-type, but the newly introduced Sandstorm was a Rock-type attack, and has been ever since.  The first Sand Stream Pokémon, Tyranitar, was a Rock-type also.  Sort of makes you wonder why other sand Pokémon, and the sand-based attacks introduced in Ruby and Sapphire, didn’t follow suit.  The only thing I can think of that they all have in common is that they live on the ground, and even that goes out the window when you encounter bloody Gligar and his nonsensical Ground/Flying type.  It might be instructive, furthermore, to question why Kangaskhan, Dunsparce and Stoutland, to name a few, are not Ground-types.

I’m honestly not sure Ground really needs to be a type at all.  It has very little in the way of thematic unity or purpose, and if I had been doing this ten years ago I might have suggested eliminating it entirely and splitting all of its belongings between Rock and Normal (although this would happen at the price of making Normal even larger and more nebulous than it is already).  You asked for my opinion on the Ground type, and I suppose I’ve given it… I don’t really ‘get’ it.  This is not to say that individual Ground-type Pokémon are poorly designed; some of them are, of course, but others are amazing.  It’s just that the type as a whole is such a vague and, frankly, poorly thought-out idea that they don’t really have anything in common as a group.  Is it really necessary to have two ‘miscellaneous’ types?

This might fall inside the lines of “future game” business that you’ve mentioned and everyone’s been asking… but each generation has introduced lots of “new.” For this questions, I want to ask about new moves… Are there any new moves you’d like to see and explore with? I mean in a thematic perspective, like how adding team battles added team moves and such.

Well, I’m sure there’s room to keep adding more and weirder effects, though I’m not really very interested in that.  I’ve always been rather taken with the idea of signature moves, myself; that’s something I’d like to see more of.  A move that’s unique to a single Pokémon means it will always have something to offer that can’t be usurped, and it also emphasises that Pokémon’s particular powers.  Better chances to be awesome, combined with a closer meshing of flavour and game mechanics – that’s win-win as far as I’m concerned.  I think a lot of Pokémon could benefit from this sort of thing, but especially ones with very unusual skills, like Kecleon (who would be so much more relevant if he had an attack that changed type with him).  Worth special mention is Delibird, who has a signature move which only makes him weaker…

If you had the opportunity to retcon anything in the pokemon games (you know, things like slowpoke’s evolution not actually depending on shellder, and the ridiculous incense-dependent baby pokemon) what would it be?

Well, there are a lot of evolution methods I’d want to play with; not just things like linking Slowpoke and Shellder somehow, but just stuff like tweaking a bunch of evolutionary levels, throwing in stones or taking them out, adjusting the degree of happiness required for certain Pokémon to evolve, etc.  Black and White, for instance, introduced a lot of Pokémon with really ridiculously high levels for evolution – apparently basing those levels on the points at which you first capture them in the game rather than on the relative power or rarity of the Pokémon in question, as previous games have.  This gives you absurd things like Rufflet and Vullaby evolving at level 54, Mienfoo at 50, or Pawniard at 52, when comparable Pokémon in previous games would be more likely to evolve in their high twenties to mid thirties, anything as high as 50 being previously reserved for Pokémon like Salamence and Dragonite.  I can understand the rationale for organising things this way – they don’t want you to catch these Pokémon and have them evolve almost immediately – but it results in them dragging their feet until the very end of the game, since other Pokémon have reached their final forms long ago. The reason I feel this is inappropriate is because it ties those Pokémon to specific stages of the game.  What if, in future games, designers want Rufflet or Mienfoo to be available early (for whatever reason)?  You’re faced with 30 or 40 levels of comparative uselessness on their part (it doesn’t help that they have no intermediate forms).  At least Magikarp gets it over with fairly quickly.  Slowpoke, Ponyta and Rhyhorn have to wait until 37, 40 and 42 respectively, and honestly I think anything more becomes unreasonable (and Rhyhorn, at least, is a lot stronger than most unevolved Pokémon).

Then there are a few Pokémon that are just weird – like Marill.  For Azurill to become friendly enough to evolve into Marill can easily take until level 16 or so… and then Marill evolves almost immediately into Azumarill at level 18.  I think that should really have been pushed up into the mid twenties when Azurill was released; thanks to Huge Power, Marill isn’t exactly a pushover anyway.  Alternatively, Azurill could be tweaked to evolve earlier (along with most of the other ‘baby’ Pokémon – stuff like Pichu and Igglybuff really should be evolving sooner than stuff like Eevee and Riolu).  I might also introduce a level requirement for the use of evolutionary stones (no level 2 Togekiss for you).  Take the Sun Stone and Moon Stone requirements away from Sunflora and Delcatty, so there can be a possibility of evolving them again if future designers should will it so, and maybe paste them onto someone else instead (it seems like it would make a lot of thematic sense for Gothorita to evolve into Gothitelle by using a Moon stone, for instance).  And for goodness’ sake, do something with Tyrogue’s ridiculous evolution method.  Attack > Defense —> Hitmonlee – fine.  Attack < Defense —> Hitmonchan – fine.  Attack = Defense —> Hitmontop – much harder for no good reason, and also makes no sense since Hitmontop is easily the most defensively-oriented of the lot.

And yes, why not get rid of the incense while we’re at it?  I understand the intent there; I get that they’re trying to maintain a degree of internal consistency between the games of different generations, but surely at some point we have to acknowledge that nobody actually cares?  No-one is really going to go up to Game Freak and demand an explanation as to why you couldn’t breed a Mime Jr. in Gold and Silver.  That’s what remakes are for!

Is there anything you would change about the gameplay mechanics if you could? Like would you want to add any other stats? Or maybe raise the amount of HP Pokemon get?

Well…

Can I just say “yes”?

I mean, not to either of those specifically, but just in general… yes.  If you gave me control of those games I would rip out their guts and replace them with special stardust.  To explain everything would take months.  Luckily, this is exactly what I plan to do once I finish my Black 2/White 2 playthrough story.

If the games were more like the anime… in the sense that keeping a Pokemon from Evolving doesn’t hinder it statistically and that a Bulbasaur can actively compete against a full grown Venusaur and win as well as any other family, are there any Pokemon you’d choose to keep unevolved, or at least the first ones that come to mind? Also would you like it if the games gave you the option to not evolve your Pokemon but gain the stat growths of their evolutions instead?

Well, yes and no.  What I would like is for evolving a Pokémon to be a choice, which is how the anime presents it – but I don’t want an unevolved Pokémon to have all the same strengths and skills as an evolved Pokémon, because then you turn evolution into a purely aesthetic change and the idea itself loses a lot of its power.  Keeping a Pokémon unevolved when you could evolve it should have drawbacks, signficant ones – you’re giving up (or at least delaying the acquisition of) incredible abilities and, usually, greater physical strength – but it should also have benefits, I think.  The introduction of the Eviolite (although intended, I believe, to help the many late-evolving Pokémon of Black and White survive and contribute until they reach their final forms) already moves us in this direction, and we actually can see now certain Pokémon capable of competing with their own evolved forms – Chansey, for example, has far fewer viable attack options but with an Eviolite actually becomes tougher than Blissey, even accounting for Blissey’s free item slot for Leftovers, while Eviolite Dusclops is arguably just a better Pokémon than Dusknoir.  Porygon2 and Porygon-Z are harder to compare because they fill completely different roles anyway, but again, Porygon2 is arguably the stronger.  Vigoroth is a weird case, because Slaking is such a weird Pokémon, but again, he’s arguably better than his own evolved form.  The Eviolite allows defensive Pokémon to shine, but I think greater diversity is called for – new mechanisms to create unevolved Pokémon which are, perhaps, weaker than their evolved forms but more flexible, or alternatively less flexible but able to execute very specific strategies effectively (Light Ball Pikachu, Deep Sea Tooth Clamperl, and Eviolite Trapinch, anyone?)  The difficulty, of course, is in devising these mechanisms such that they don’t break the Pokémon who are already effective without evolving completely, like Dusclops and Chansey.  I haven’t gotten that far yet.  Must start on ideas.

This kind of thing could become really interesting when you look at Pokémon who change dramatically when they evolve – the one who comes immediately to mind for me is Exeggcute.  How might an Exeggcute be more effective in battle than an Exeggutor?  Superior reaction times, perhaps?  Tactical flexibility as a result of its multiple bodies?  And how to represent that without necessitating a radical departure from present game mechanics?  Tricky.  Some others that might present interesting puzzles include Munchlax, Dragonair, Eevee, Teddiursa, Shelgon and Pupitar, Murkrow, and perhaps Karrablast and Shelmet.

Here’s a mystery for you. Do you have any reasonable theories as to why every pokemon that can learn tms can also learn toxic? In the 1st generation games, when it was first given to you by Koga, he said it was some sort of secret technique that’s over 400 years old. Though I’m not sure what sort of ninja technique allows one to spew out a blob of incredibly poisonous goo, unless we’re getting into Naruto territory. It just kinda irks me is all.

Not really… I think you’re right to look to Koga’s description of Toxic; it is his signature move, after all.  The idea that ninjas use poison is also fairly uncontroversial.  Since it’s described as a ninja technique – that is, a technique used by human spies and assassins – I’d probably handwave it by saying that teaching Toxic to a Pokémon with no poison of its own involves teaching it to identify and gather parts of poisonous plants or mushrooms and somehow store them until they’re ready for use without actually suffering from their effects (maybe chewing two different components together creates the toxic effect, so you can keep them separate until the last minute and then spit them out as soon as they’re combined?).  I don’t know.  Something like that, anyway.  It probably varies from Pokémon to Pokémon.