Tag: me

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.

Have you played any RPGs other than Pokemon? If so, could game freak learn any lessons that are relevant to Pokemon by playing these RPGs? Also, would you recommend any of them to Pokemon fans?

Hrm.  Well, I’m a big fan of BioWare’s CRPGs; I’ve had a lot of fun with the Baldur’s Gate series, Neverwinter Nights, and Knights of the Old Republic.  I’ve also had some experience with Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series, and have been spending far too much time lately playing Skyrim.  I think these games can potentially provide a lot of nice examples of how to tell a story through the medium of a video game, and how to craft a markedly less linear plot – with the caveat that what Pokémon is trying to do is, in many ways, quite different, in terms of both the overall tone and outlook of the setting, and the inherent requirements of the gameplay mechanics.

Anonymous asks:

Imagine that you have been hired to become a gym leader/elite four. You must have a team of one main type only, maybe with an extra pokemon of a different type added in there. What type would you choose, and what would your team be?

One main type only?  Pssht.  Bo-ring.

(If you really want to see my single-type team, take a look at this other question I answered this morning)

Personally, I think the whole single-type Gym deal is getting a bit old.  I do believe Gyms should have unifying themes, and often a single type is a nice way of doing that, but I’d like to see some Gyms with more abstract themes, like the Viridian Gym of Heart Gold and Soul Silver, which is based around not a type but a move – Trick Room.

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Anonymous asks:

What would be your dream competitive pokemon team and why? Also what would be your ideal pleasure pokemon team ( just for fun)

[Disclaimer: this blog should not be your first port of call for competitive Pokémon advice, as I am a horrendous battler]

I’ve always said that, if there’s one Pokémon I’d want with me in a fight more than any other, it’s Starmie.  Of course, Starmie doesn’t like Pursuit, so I need something to murder Dark-types, something like Breloom.  I love Poison Heal Breloom, and Poison Heal Breloom loves me.  I want a Porygon 2 in there, because Porygon 2 with an Eviolite pretty much counters everything, right?  Let’s throw in a Dragon Dance Gyarados to ‘drop the hammer,’ as it were, and… what’s missing?  Stealth Rock!  Need something with Stealth Rock.  Let’s use Bronzong for that.

Oh, and it just doesn’t look right if you don’t have a Dragonite.  Bitches love Dragonite.

If I want a team just for fun, it’s going to be all Grass-types.  This is because Grass-types are the best.

Vileplume gets in because Vileplume is my favourite Pokémon and can Stun Spore things like nobody’s business.  Next is Whimsicott because Whimsicott is ridiculous and fun and a huge pain for your enemies.  Ludicolo is important so I don’t get completely squashed by Fire- and Ice-types (yeah, like he’s really going to help) and Cradily is bizarre and awesome.  Exeggutor is too slow to do much of anything, but packs a hell of a punch.  I want to finish by sticking Virizion in there, because I need someone to clean up with Swords Dance, right?

This may seem like an odd question, but how do *you* play Pokemon? I mean, we hear all of your philosophical and abstract stuff which of course is amazing, but when you actually sit down to play one of these games, what do you do? Do you like to catch everything you see, or are you selective? Does your play-style change if you are replaying a game? Do you take competitive strategies into account or do you just brawn your way through?

*shrug* Sorta depends what I’m doing.

The very first time I played Black version, I caught every new species I encountered because I wanted to figure out what made them tick.  I also chose Pokémon to use without really having any idea what I was looking at or how it would evolve (when I decided to train my Larvesta, Invicta, I knew she’d be worth it in the end, but had no idea what she’d actually become or how long that would take – turned out the answer was “a while” but at least I had an Eviolite).  You only get one chance to play like that, and I think it’s a lot of fun because it really pushes the theme of discovery that’s so important to the series.

When I replay a game, sometimes I like to impose rules on myself, because Pokémon is a lot of fun but (let’s face it) not all that difficult.  The ‘Nuzlocke Challenge’ is one set of rules, but there are other ways you can do it – sometimes I limit myself to using Pokémon of only one type, other times I get my best friend to pick out a team for me and provide me with a bunch of eggs.  The Pokémon he picks are invariably awful, because he is a sadistic bastard – on one memorable occasion, I played through Leaf Green with a Beedrill, a Farfetch’d, a Lickitung, a Primeape (easily the strongest member of my team), a Tangela, and a special attacker Rhydon.  And you know what?  That Farfetch’d kicked ass.  Relatively speaking, anyway.  Sometimes I’ll just limit myself to using Pokémon I’ve never seriously used before.  That led to an interesting Ruby version playthrough with a four-man team of Masquerain, Armaldo, Solrock and Kecleon (since Masquerain was going to be my only Pokémon for a while, I prepared for this one by breeding a Surskit with Hydro Pump, because seriously, it’s Surskit).

As for competitive strategies… well, the thing to realise is that a lot of stuff that you have to think about when you’re preparing for a Battle Tower run or a battle against another person just doesn’t apply to a playthrough.  Trying to EV-train your Pokémon is just a waste of time, you’ll have limited access to TMs, you probably won’t be breeding your Pokémon so egg moves are out, you won’t have access to move tutors, and your opponents will rarely switch, which means that moves like Spikes and Stealth Rock are much less useful unless you plan to spam Whirlwind.  The other thing is that, since the AI opponents’ Pokémon never have any EVs until you get to Battle Tower type facilities, later in the game your own Pokémon will almost always be faster than them unless they have a massive advantage in level (which, granted, the Elite Four and Champion often will), which drastically changes the value of fast and slow Pokémon.  In short, I think it’s good to be aware of good competitive strategy because a lot of the properties that make Pokémon competitively strong do still apply, but you also need to remember that you’re actually not playing the same game.

If you got up one morning and you were a pokemon who would you want to be and why them.

Hmm…

Maybe it’s the historian in me, but I’m very tempted to pick Xatu.  The whole infinity of the past and the future, spread out before your eyes… on the other hand, there are a few hints that Xatu spend most of their lives paralysed with terror because of the things they’ve seen.

Hmm.

Maybe I’ll just play it safe and be a Druddigon.  I’ll live in a cave being grumpy and eat anyone who bothers me.  That’s pretty much my goal in life anyway.

I mean… you say Espeon is your favorite. What does that mean?

I said Espeon was my favourite of Eevee’s evolutions.  My favourite Pokémon is Vileplume.

What I mean, though, is that I just like Espeon the best.  I have no coherent or defensible reason for liking Espeon the best, and it really comes down to my personal taste.  I try to keep that out of my analyses as much as I can – I’ll often think that a Pokemon is objectively well-designed even though I don’t really like it, because I can understand why it would appeal to other people with different tastes (Swampert, for instance); other times I’ll decide that a Pokémon is just badly thought-out and boring even though I myself have a certain affection for it (a lot of Grass Pokémon, like Lilligant, provoke this response, as well as Glaceon, whom I’ll be covering tomorrow).

Does that clear things up?

If you could have a team of 6 Pokemon in the real world, what would it be? You need not take into consideration explanations, such as why an alive sarcophagus is with you, but practicality should be taken into account. (Groudon would be too large to actually do anything with in most situations, and many water Pokemon would require some type of body of water to come out of the balls.) Also, if one of these were to be a Pokemon always out with you, your “Pikachu” in a sense, which would it be?

Hmm… this sounds like fun.  Who would be useful…?

I often have trouble with computers and the like; Porygon’s ability to transform into software and talk to electronics would make all that a breeze.

Baltoy or Claydol would be a great Pokémon to have on an archaeological site – Earth Power to move stubborn, compacted dirt, telekinetic skills to move delicate artefacts without handling them directly… it’d even be able to help with identifying some items!

For getting about, nothing beats teleportation!  I want an Abra!  He’d probably be the ‘always out’ Pokémon, just because he’s small and easy to carry.

For long-haul stuff that Abra can’t handle, some kind of Flying Pokémon would be good too.  I’m going to go with Tropius for style, and for free delicious fruit!

If I ever get into a fight, there’s no Pokémon I’d rather have at my side than Starmie.  Figuring out how to do Thunderbolt and Ice Beam without the benefit of TMs might take some doing, but it’d be worth it.

Finally, I’m allowed one for sentimentality’s sake, aren’t I?  Vileplume.  She’s my favourite Pokémon and I couldn’t possibly not pick her!