One lunatic's love-hate relationship with the Pokémon franchise, and his addled musings on its rights, wrongs, ins and outs. Come one, come all, and indulge my delusions of grandeur as I inflict my opinions on anyone within shouting distance.
What do you think is the logic behind Zubat’s Poison typing?
Well, for one thing, Game Freak seem to have disliked the idea of pure Flying-types up until generation V, when we got Tornadus, and it’s not really clear what else Zubat could possibly have been (no Dark type when he was introduced). For another, vampire bats are technically venomous by some definitions, since their saliva has special properties that inhibit clotting and increase blood flow to the area of a bite.
Huh, for some reason I thought you were playing Sun, but since the normal trial featured rattatah instead of yungoos, I imagine you’re actually playing Moon. How do you feel about the inverted clock feature?
Well, those entries are titled “Pokémon Moon: Episode 1, 2, 3, etc”…
Anyway. It actually took me a little while to figure out what was going on, because at the moment I’m in New Zealand for Christmas with my family, but my DS was still set to US eastern time, so in practice the game was… I think six hours behind the actual time of day? Which is sort of how the game justifies it, of course – Alola is so far away from everything that it’s in a different time zone, and Professor Kukui actually asks you if you’re feeling any jet lag following your arrival from Kanto. Anyway. It seems perfectly harmless, and a nice way of emphasising what I assume will be a prominent day/night theme in the games (Yungoos’ Pokédex entry specifically talks about how it’s very active during the day and promptly collapses from exhaustion at dusk, so it makes a sensible opposite to the nocturnal Alolan Dark Rattata). Depending on your typical play schedule it might become inconvenient, but that’s true of the basic day/night system as well, and you can circumvent it easily enough by just lying to your DS about what time it is, if you really need to.
Why do you think gen-specific Pokemon pairs get unequal treatment by Game Freak? (Eg, Vileplume got a new evolution in Gen 2, while Victreebel got nothing, and Whimsicott was already better than Lilligant even before becoming Fairy-type in Gen 6.)
I suppose because those pairings don’t serve any gameplay purpose beyond the games in which they were originally introduced. Oddish and Bellsprout were no longer version-exclusive in generation II, so why continue to act as if they were? If anything, I think it would be pointlessly restrictive for future games to demand that those pairs of Pokémon continue to mirror each other. If you have an idea for an alternate evolution for Gloom that you think is a good one, why declare it invalid because you don’t have an idea for Weepinbell? As for Whimsicott getting a buff that Lilligant missed out on by becoming a Fairy-type – well, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Whimsicott was already better than Lilligant, so clearly they didn’t care in the first place. Why would they care more in generation VI, when Whimsicott’s special relationship with Lilligant was no longer relevant, than they had in V?
What would you say your favorite Water-type is? (My intuition is that it’s Vaporeon.)
No, actually – I’m not even sure Vaporeon is in the top five. My favourite is Milotic, followed probably by Starmie and Kingdra.
What do you think of Pearls, Nuggets, Mushrooms, and other material commodities in the game that exist only to be sold for ca$h?
Well, it’s not a Pokémon-specific phenomenon. The general video game term is “vendor trash” – items that serve as a way of giving extra money to the player without having actual physical coins etc. lying around in places that make no sense. In a lot of games these are things like the pelts of animals, or magical body parts of rare magical creatures. Obviously that’s no good for Pokémon, so instead we get nuggets. From an in-universe perspective, well, clearly these items are useless to us, but not necessarily to everyone. Nuggets are made of gold; pearls can likewise be used for jewellery. The mushrooms, we know from a chef who will buy them in Black and White, can be used in gourmet cooking. Rare bones, and the assortment of artefacts from the undersea Undella Ruins, all have tremendous scientific value. God only knows what comet shards can be used for.
Captain Ilima’s invitation takes me north from Hau’oli City towards Verdant Cavern, the great fern- and moss-covered grotto where I am to complete the first step of the “mission” supposedly given to me by Tapu Koko. There are some minor delays in leaving the city, owing to that damn Tauros blocking the road again, but Kahuna Hala was on the scene to sort it out. Apparently the Tauros is something of a local celebrity, and I’m starting to think that the primary responsibility associated with the position of Melemele Kahuna is to keep it from obstructing traffic. Not that it matters all that much – I’m not exactly in a hurry to get to Verdant Cavern. I still kinda resent Tapu Koko (and I suppose by extension Hala, but he’s a difficult fellow to dislike) for unilaterally deciding to put me on the path of the Island Challenge, so I’m happy to keep it waiting for as long as possible.
Continue reading “Pokémon Moon, Episode 3: In Which A Magic Rock Promises Me Incredible Power”After getting my Pokédex sufficiently haunted, the next stop is apparently the Hau’oli Outskirts Pokémon Centre. Alolan Pokémon Centres have incorporated Pokémarts, in the style of their Unovan and Kalosian counterparts, but also have cafés for the region’s countless tourists to sit and relax. The café serves some items we recognise from older games, including Lemonade and Moomoo Milk, but these aren’t healing items for your Pokémon anymore; they’re purely for the enjoyment of the trainer. The café’s real gameplay purpose seems to be to provide treats for your Pokémon that come free with your drinks – Pokébeans to feed them in the Refresh screen, Sweet Hearts and imported Lumiose Galettes to heal injuries or status ailments, and even the occasional Rare Candy. The barista is also a fount of gossip and dubiously useful life advice. It’s an atmospheric addition more than anything else, and not particularly significant, but it’s also the first damn moment I’ve been allowed to feel like I’m actually on holiday, so I linger in the café for a while longer, trying to ask the barista in increasingly overt and desperate terms for “something a little stronger,” before Lillie shows up and drags me to our next destination…
…the Hau’oli trainers’ school.
Continue reading “Pokémon Moon, Episode 2: In Which I Am Seduced By The Opulence Of Metropolitan Life”All I wanted was a goddamn holiday.
“Come to sunny Alola,” the brochures said. “Let all your cares wash away,” they said. “Relax on the beach and enjoy the sunset with a glass of cool Pinap juice,” they said. “Immerse yourself in the vibrant local culture,” they said.
The brochures did not mention roads blocked by irritable Tauros, strange waifish girls with dangerous and suicidal cosmic Pokémon, “quests” handed out by mysterious and fickle gods, ritualised duels to please the aforementioned fickle gods, or anything that might be described as a series of “trials.”
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Continue reading “Pokémon Moon, Episode 1: In Which I Am Rescued From Certain Death By An Island Deity”Can you PLEASE talk about why Pokemon aren’t slaves? I’m tired of that being thrown at Pokemon as an insult.
You probably want to start here – my “Ethics of Pokémon Training” is by a fair margin the most popular thing I’ve ever written. I essentially try to argue here that the act of catching a Pokémon represents a sort of ritualised contract that is made between a Pokémon and a trainer, and that this contract can be broken by either party. You can also read this, where I compare Pokémon to professional gladiators and Greek teachers and doctors under the Roman Empire, who were technically slaves but in some cases got a pretty good deal out of it. See also here, here and here.
Continue reading “Anonymous asks:”Have you ever thought about running another of those make your own Pokémon projects?
Well, I’ve thought about it, but I’m not exactly short of things that I want to do, and I really don’t think there’s much that I bring to the table in a project like that. Like, plenty of websites exist, and plenty of people populate them, that specialise in designing Pokémon. There are also things like Smogon’s Create-a-Pokémon forum for communal efforts, which are run much better than I could hope to. I’d rather focus on writing my Pokémon reviews and anime commentaries, and finishing that Nuzlocke story, and I have other things in mind for after I tackle generation VII. It’s a very low priority, put it that way.
Pokémaniacal 