Tag: pokemon go

Jim the Editor asks:

What do you think of the Halloween-themed pokemon go designs?

So Jim and I talked about these for a while, and… well, I actually hadn’t given them much thought at all, previously. Hallowe’en is much less of a big deal in New Zealand than it is in the US, and is almost exclusively an event for, like, preteens. Hallowe’en fancy dress parties aren’t really a thing, or at least weren’t for my age group. Jim had a thought, though, which is that these are… well, obviously they’re cute costumes, but also weirdly insensitive, in a way? I mean… Pikachu. You’re dressing up as a Pokémon that knows its true appearance is horrifying and wants to look like you because it’s desperate to be loved. That is in bad taste, Pikachu. You can take that costume off and everyone will still love you. If Mimikyu takes its costume off, everyone will be dead. And you, Charmander – Cubone wear those skulls to mourn their dead mothers, and you’re wearing it because it’s fun to look spooky, you insensitive little $#!t. Squirtle… y’know, I don’t know if this is as bad, but Squirtle, you are dressing up as a Pokémon whose existence is torture and whose own physical form is a constant sorrowful reminder of its own lost life. I just feel like a Yamask might find that offensive, y’know? Bulbasaur… Bulbasaur, you can keep being Shedinja, you’re fine. Shedinja doesn’t give a fµ¢£. I mean, you do also have objectively the $#!ttiest costume but I don’t think you’re doing something actively harmful.

oh god damn it; why won’t they LEAVE ME ALONE

Can’t they SEE I’m not done reviewing the seventh generation Pokémon yet!?

Sooo… Apparently this is a “mythical Pokémon,” meaning one of the subset of legendary Pokémon that can’t be obtained through normal gameplay.  It started appearing in Pokémon Go earlier this week… or rather, Ditto that have transformed into Meltan started appearing.  The workaround with Ditto is odd, but the idea of introducing a new Pokémon through Go is neat, and creates a cool feeling of discovery for people who stumble upon it without already knowing it’s there.  This is also a pretty clever way to quietly advertise generation 8 to players of the mobile game (many of them players who had dropped Pokémon for a number of years, and were drawn back by nostalgia and Go‘s low barriers to entry).

Meltan is apparently a Steel-type Pokémon made of living, liquid metal, capable of absorbing other metal objects into itself.  It’s apparently based on a hex nut, which is… weird… but the liquid body, and being based on something that is only a part of larger machines or constructs, could both point towards multiple Meltan being able to combine into more powerful entities.  There is a distinct and worrying possibility that Meltan will be only one of several weird-cute little Steel-types in the shape of machine parts, and then when you bring them all together they assemble into the fµ¢&ing dragonzord or something.  Where there’s a nut Pokémon, there must be a bolt Pokémon, and why stop there?  Washers, nuts, screws, the sky’s the limit.  THERE, I made a damn prediction about something; I hope you’re happy, because that’s officially 100% of my prediction quota for the leadup to generation 8.

nasat asks:

A few days ago I finally evolved a Gloom into Vileplume on Pokémon Go. I can’t help but wonder if you’ve acquired one yet, and how the “catching them all” is going on that front?

I kinda fell out of the habit of doing anything with it regularly.  There was a period of a couple of weeks back in October when one particular patch was incompatible with my phone for some reason, and I couldn’t play.  By the time it was fixed I’d sort of lost interest.

Thoughts on the Pokémon Go Teams

I’m probably supposed to have to opinions on Pokémon Go by now, so we should talk about that.  Obviously if you know my writing then you know that I tend to be more interested in things like story and characterisation and world-building than in strategy and mathematics and the inner workings of the game, because frankly there are loads of other people on the internet who are just much better equipped than me to deal with the hard-core mechanical stuff.  And Pokémon Go, although I am having a lot of fun playing it, doesn’t give me a whole lot to pick apart, in the way that I like to pick apart episodes of the anime or whatever.  But I would clearly be in dereliction of my solemn duty as an Internet Pokémon Guru if I did not produce some form of rambling commentary on the bits of this game that have managed to catch my interest – namely, the three teams and their competing philosophies.

Continue reading “Thoughts on the Pokémon Go Teams” →

Frezgle asks:

Hey!!! Did you see the a trailer for Pokemon Go? What do you think? I’m pretty psyched, since Ingress was awesome and it’s made by the same people.

I have indeed.  It’s actually kind of funny to me, because I have a friend back home who works in the mobile games industry and has been working towards a pitch for basically this exact game for years, and now they’ve gone and done it first, the bastards.  Anyway, I don’t actually know anything about Ingress, but yeah, I’m excited!  Pokémon was always supposed to be about exploring the world around you, and I think this is a fantastic way of building on that theme.  I’m particularly interested in the segment from the trailer that depicts a massive battle against Mewtwo – legendary Pokémon finally getting the respect they deserve, as huge challenges that take as many as a dozen Pokémon working in unison to take down.  I wonder whether you’ll be able to see different Pokémon in different parts of the world, or whether the game will be able to choose species that are appropriate to the real world environment?  Lots of interesting decisions they could make here.