Anonymous asks:

In your opinion, what Pokémon best represent each type and what they’re all about? So like, what’s the most representative Normal-type, Ice-type, Dragon, Ghost, Fairy, Ground, and so on?

Hmmm… wellllll, I’m going to hedge my bets by saying that there are several types, like Normal and Ground, where I don’t know “what they’re all about” and I’m honestly not sure a convincing answer exists, perhaps not even in the minds of Game Freak’s designers, but let’s give it a shot… Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Rockcutter64 asks:

Since they seemed to have abandoned mega evolution for the moment, any idea what you’d do with megas of the 2nd gen starters?

Not really… I’ve never been wild about any of the generation II starter Pokémon (not even Meganium, who enjoys the benefit of my blanket fondness for all Grass Pokémon), and honestly I don’t really like designing mega evolutions very much. Typhlosion in generation VII actually got an interesting little almost-signature-move (she shares it with Moltres, and it can be bred into Growlithe, but hey, who’s counting?) – Burn Up, which gives you one really powerful Fire attack and then strips you of your Fire type, which in Typhlosion’s case makes her typeless. I’d sort of like to give Meganium and Feraligatr something new to match, and then maybe these putative mega forms could have new abilities that mesh with the signature moves somehow. For Typhlosion, you could have her automatically regain her Fire type at the end of the turn after losing it (for any reason – Burn Up, but also Soak, or anything else added to the game in the future that can cause a Pokémon to lose its original type) and increase her special attack whenever that happens. Meganium ought to have something better than Sweet Scent that emphasises her ability to quell violence and conflict or restore life… maybe a kind of mass Wish, a delayed full restore that affects everything in play, with an ability that causes all healing from Meganium’s moves to recur one turn later, with reduced effect. And Feraligatr can just… I don’t know, be able to bite everything in half, or whatever.

Anonymous asks:

Is it just me or have Psychic types really gone through an overhaul? In the first generation it was populated by bizarre, unnatural creatures like Mr Mime, Hypno, Exeggutor, and Starmie and now it’s basically the generic legendary type.

Well, I mean, I agree completely with your assertion that French mimes are bizarre and unnatural, but other than that, I don’t think so. Inkay and Malamar the mind-controlling land-squid in VI fit the bill of “bizarre and unnatural” to me, and V had Gothitelle, Sigilyph, Reuniclus and Beheeyem. I think partly you’re maybe just noticing that there are very few Psychic-types in generation VII. Like… Cosmog, Cosmoem, Solgaleo and Lunala are basically all one thing, then there’s that freaky prism demon, and Tapu Lele, and other than that, there’s… what, Bruxish and Oranguru? And honestly Oranguru (a.k.a. the Stalker Pokémon) gives me the creeps every bit as much as Hypno ever did.

Anonymous asks:

Do you have any feminine and masculine Pokémon designs that you’re fond of? Or not so fond of? For example, for feminine designs I really like Roselia, Froslass, and Primarina, but I’m not a fan of Jynx or Lopunny. For masculine designs, I’m very fond of all of the Gen IV Fighting-types (minus Toxicroak), but not Machamp or Diggersby. Hm. Maybe I just don’t like rabbits… What about you?

Eh, I think to some extent what counts as “masculine” or “feminine” is probably pretty subjective, and I don’t think the designers consciously intended for all of those to be strongly one or the other. Like, Lopunny or Jynx, sure, but I never thought of Toxicroak as unusually “masculine,” and Toxicroak, Diggersby and Roselia in the games actually have a 50/50 gender split (then again, so does Lopunny). Also my brain sometimes parses the masculinity/femininity of Pokémon designs in weird ways (Hawlucha and Typhlosion are definitely feminine to me) that I wouldn’t necessarily expect other people to share. So I just don’t think it’s all that useful a category for thinking about Pokémon designs unless the in-game gender ratios suggest that it’s consciously being invoked.

Alex-Littleboots asks:

Assuming you’ve met every new pokemon of alola, what do you think of the addition of signature move/ability for each pokemon(evo line) ? I think it’s very cool since it’s a good way to make them more unique

I think I’ve met almost all of them now (I’m further through than my write-up suggests; I’ve actually finished the Elite Four now). I hadn’t realised they all had something like that, but yeah, I like it – I’ve kinda always had a habit of wanting to give signature moves to everything, and I think there is a point at which you just plain run out of unique ideas. One of my old mantras, though, is that Pokémon “should be good at the things they’re good at” – that is, if we’re told a Pokémon has a certain lifestyle and fighting strategy, then those things should actually be a part of what it can do, and do well, and signature moves/abilities are usually a good way of doing that.

Anonymous asks:

Which of the current mega evolutions is your favorite or do you think is the best designed?

I’m very fond of Mega Sableye, personally. Mega Evolution is a process that creates a crazy-overpowered super battle mode, not something that’s meant to exist as a realistic creature – it turns Pokémon into exaggerated versions of themselves. I think Mega Sableye lugging around a massive jewel that it uses to reflect attacks (hence the Magic Bounce ability) is a fun, quirky way of doing that.

Anonymous asks:

would you want a wolf Pokemon and should it evolve at night only? How would you make a wolf Pokemon?

Well, it would make a sort of sense to have one in the generation calling its games “Sun” and “Moon,” wouldn’t it? Given the general symbolism of wolves as lunar animals in European folklore, anyway. Then again, I think the themes that would be my go-to ideas for a wolf Pokémon have been ‘done’ elsewhere – like, Zoroark already kinda works as a ‘werewolf’ Pokémon despite being a fox and not a wolf because of its powers of darkness and ability to appear as a human, and Mightyena already deals with the teamwork theme that would be inspired by wolves’ pack hunting skills, despite being a hyena and not a wolf. That’s not to say you couldn’t still do one, just that I’d probably try to go with something a lot more offbeat, like these guys. I’m not sure off the top of my head what I would go with.

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.

Anonymous asks:

So I saw in one of your recent answers to a question, that you hated Dedenne, and I was just wondering why exactly you hate her? Mostly because I really like her design, and also that she is the only competitively viable Pika-Clone imo due to my Mono-Electric team, where she pulls her own weight pretty well.

Well… I didn’t use the word “hate” and I honestly don’t think I ever have with respect to Dedenne. She is in some respects more deserving of respect than her predecessors. Honestly, though, I’ve gotta say that your own endorsement of her as the only competitively viable Pikachu clone is a) not exactly saying much, and b) probably not true; if anyone’s earned that title it’s Pachirisu. Ultimately, I would have thought that the rest of the post you’re referencing would have made my problem with Dedenne perfectly obvious: it’s not even her fault, really, I just get seriously rubbed up the wrong way by “template” Pokémon, when Game Freak decides to make the same damn Pokémon again and again because it worked so well the first time. I’ve been done with the whole Pikachu clone thing as a basic idea for about three generations now, and Dedenne did nothing to change my mind. If you particularly wish to know my thoughts on her in excruciating detail, you can find them here.