Tag: pokemon

Ace Trainer Alvaro asks:

Although a relatively new ability introduced in Gen VI, Symbiosis has come up several times across your blog history (see https://pokemaniacal.com/?s=Symbiosis) and it sticks out as an ability that is oddly specific, to the point it’s arguably not useful except for passing on items to allies in double, triple, etc battles that have consumed their own consumable held-item. How would you rethink this ability or create a new ability that captures the concept of symbiosis (let’s just think about mutualism or the purposes of simplification)? My immediate inclination is that if a Pokémon with Symbiosis has a held item, it also copies the effects of that item (but not the item itself) onto an ally once said item is consumed. Extra credit: this ability could be retconned as a Hidden Ability for Slowbro and the Bulbasaur evolutionary line.

Continue reading “Ace Trainer Alvaro asks:” →

Toucannon asks:

You said that “Sentret frankly has a much more striking aesthetic and a more interesting design than Furret, which is a shame, and I don’t know how we can redesign Furret to make more use of Sentret’s distinctive bullseye patterning and ability to stand on its tail.”. That’s quite true. What would you think of redesigning Ursaring so that it would be an evolution of Sentret? Like, giving him a more “red pandaish” aestetic to be a bit closer to the base stage, with multiple concentrical rings in the belly instead of one, and maybe a pokedex line about how “Ursaring uses each other as target practice for their hyperbeams to decide their pecking order”, or some such?

Do you think such a design could work? And, assuming Sentret was still catchable in the early routes, what would a (relatively) easier to obtain Ursaring do to the games in which that happened?

[This is in response to me $#!tting all over Furret in a recent post (for which I absolutely do not apologise)]

…you know, this is a fµ¢£ing bizarre idea but for some reason I kind of like it?  Teddiursa and Ursaring’s hoarding theme actually fits with Sentret and Furret’s complex burrows, they have the ring motif in common, and if Sentret’s evolved form is something huge and brutish, they can have their lookouts call the muscle back from foraging if the troupe is attacked.  On the other hand, if we leave Ursaring as a bear, it’s a very weird jump from whatever kind of meerkat-thing Sentret is supposed to be, and if we make it into a red panda instead it’s… well, I mean, that’s not really Ursaring, particularly (it’s arguably something better, but I am also starting to lose track of what we’re actually doing); certainly it no longer seems like a good fit for Ursaring’s current statline.  Red panda’s also strange next to the burrows because they’re arboreal. I think it’s… probably better to work with what Furret’s got at the moment – the whole “fur snake” aesthetic and the maze-like burrow concept. I still don’t know how to do that in an interesting way, but the unvarnished truth is I don’t actually care about Furret very much, and that’s Furret’s own fault, so it’s just going to have to learn to live with that.

Name (required) asks:

So with Q-Fusion Hyper Abilities being a thing in gen VIII, how do you think they will impact the metagame?

Well, it was certainly a bold choice to give such a significant buff to all Pokémon with the letter q in their English names, but frankly it’s a pretty short list, and if you manage to fit two of those Pokémon onto your team, and manage to spend a turn fusing them, you deserve to get the ridiculous hyper-abilities.  Rayquaza would probably still prefer to mega-evolve than Q-fuse, but most of the others seem really powerful, and the beneficiaries are mostly Pokémon who haven’t gotten a whole lot of attention in the past.  Nidoquanid should be a powerhouse with Q-BubbleForce turning all its best attacks into super-powered dual-type Water versions that bypass immunity abilities.  Vespiqwilfish can stall forever since Q-Presstimidation drops the opponent’s attack stats every time they try to hurt you.  Eviolite Tranquilladin being immune to Flying attacks (as well as truly a ridiculous number of other things) thanks to Q-BigPecksProof makes it a really interesting counter to a lot of Pokémon.  Eviolite Squilava’s Q-FlashFireDish lets it heal not just from using Fire attacks or even being hit by Fire attacks, but from being in Sunny Day, or being in the party while someone else uses Fire attacks, or even just thinking about fire (and I admit it does seem a little excessive that the game will upgrade your Switch with a brain-scan capability just to facilitate this effect, but the flavour/design justification is so good that in my opinion it’s absolutely worth it).

Honestly these things are going to totally run away with the entire game if J-Armour GigaTech Moves turn out not to be the hard counter they’re supposed to be.

SkarmorySilver asks:

I remember a few years back when I challenged you to come up with a viable Dedenne evolution, but I don’t think I’ve ever asked you about one for Togedemaru yet. Seeing as you got burned out fixing up the worst of the Normal/Flying birds recently, though, I’ll spare you the pain and provide an idea for one I thought of a while ago – In some some parts of Asia and the Middle East, the hedgehog is credited in myth with bringing fire to man, so I combined that with the principle of electric heating and came up with a glyptodont/hedgehog hybrid critter with a spiny shell like a cartoon sun which could learn Fire-type attacks on top of the stuff Togedemaru gets already; it attracts lightning to heat up its spines, so it can gently warm its surroundings and allow life to flourish in cold nights (as well as learn Flame Charge or maybe even Flare Blitz if you’re daring enough). I still don’t know how to fix Zing Zap though, since I only thought about the pitch for Togedemaru’s evolved form, rather than improving the move itself (a damage boost is obvious, but IDK what additional effects if any could be included on top of it, just in case).

Continue reading “SkarmorySilver asks:” →

jeffthelinguist asks:

I think you might have mentioned in another answer that you will cover this in a later article, but in case you aren’t going to… can we get your thoughts on the Rainbow Rocket thing that happened in Smoon? Like… I’ve no idea if it’s considered canon (though what even would canon be in Pokémon anymore?) but your speciality is overly dissecting implied lore in these games and, as much as Rainbow Rocket feels like a fan fiction (I mean it pretty much is one)… well I’m curious what you have to say about RR both in terms of your reactions and how you think it affects the world building here. Please be as pokemaniacal as possible!

This actually is on the list of things I plan to write full articles on after finishing the last few gen VI Pokémon, along with, uh… Team Skull/Guzma, the Aether Foundation/Lusamine, Lillie/Hau/Gladion, the player as Champion, maybe something Z-move-related… oh, and one of my Patreon supporters suggested doing something on the Alolan trial culture (which frankly is peak Pokémaniacal nonsense and something I will absolutely do).  But yeah, the whole Team Rainbow Rocket thing is… well, it… I mean, I like nostalgia fuel as much as the next millennial, but I don’t understand it at all.  Giovanni is a mob boss who ran an illegal casino – he’s actually in some ways the smallest-scale villain Pokémon’s ever had – but out of nowhere they’ve turned him into this comic book supervillain whose sheer overwhelming malice has bound every other villain in Pokémon history to his will, in order to… well, honestly I’m not even sure, but to conquer the multiverse, I guess???

I say all this now; often when I actually sit down to write a full-length article about something I start to discover things that I actually like about it and make it worthwhile, and can no longer bring myself to outright condemn it, so I guess we’ll find out, but right now I think the most valuable thing about the whole incident is that We, The Gays now own Team Rocket because rainbows (I don’t make the tea; I just serve it).