Tag: Pokémon

Anonymous asks:

Game Freak often do event giveaways of Pokemon with special moves. What if they did the same thing, but with abilities? I.E. a Pikachu with an ability it couldn’t normally get (say Adaptability, for example) that it couldn’t pass on by breeding? I think this would make the games even more interesting, and be another way of giving older Pokemon access to newer abilities.

Eh… to be honest I’ve never really been fond of event-exclusive Pokémon; it annoys me when companies put things in their games that you can’t get by playing the game.  I don’t quite see what those things add.

The Philosophical Sheep asks:

Do you think it’s time that Pokemon games got rid of the whole “Team Evil” tradition? It seems that they’re just constraining their storylines a lot more by requiring that every villain be the boss of an evil organization. And I feel like Lysandre, for example, would have worked a lot better as a stand-alone villain.

It sort of depends on how much you value the idea of “Team Evil” as a traditional element of the games’ story, like having a choice of three Grass/Fire/Water starters or completing the Pokédex.  Personally I tend to like the idea of ditching as many of the formulaic elements of the games as they can get away with, and I think I more or less agree with your assessment of Lysandre (it’s important to note here that his plan does actually imply the presence of an inner circle that he wants to survive the Ultimate Weapon, but that inner circle doesn’t have to be a “team” in the standard Pokémon sense).  I think that as long as they insist on keeping a standard set of elements like this, they’re probably never going to come up with a really excellent story that rivals the best games produced by other companies (either Japanese or western).  They can keep improving on their own past efforts, though, and I’m still happy to see them do that.

VikingBoyBilly asks:

What if abilities were split into “traits” and “skills,” where “traits” are permanently stapled onto the species due to it being inherent to their physiology (stuff like levitate, iron barbs, liquid ooze, etc.) and “skills” being ones they have to learn and are limited so if they want another skill, they have to replace the old one? (stuff like technician, super luck, moxie, inner focus, etc.)

Seems legit.  It’s sightly awkward in that you wind up creating this major gameplay distinction between learned and inherent abilities that is based entirely on aesthetics (like, as far as I can tell there is no mechanical criterion that separates the two groups you’ve outlined).  Maybe at some point the developers actually want to have a Pokémon that can get Levitate but doesn’t have it automatically (the way Bronzong is now)?  Of course, you could just rule that things which are inherent “traits” for some Pokémon can be learned “skills” for others.  You also need a mechanism for learning skills (but that could be as simple as having them be learned on level-up like moves).

Pokémon Generations: Episodes 5 and 6

Two episodes, okay; let’s do this thing.  Today we’re looking at two of the supporting characters from the Johto games: the rival character, Silver, and the “mystery man” pursuing Suicune, Eusine.  Jim the Editor and I have discussed Silver at some length in the past, as part of a series on all the rival characters of the core games.  Eusine I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about in detail before; he’s not a terribly deep character in his own right, but he’s sort of interesting as a prelude to the rapidly expanding role that legendary Pokémon have in the games’ storylines from the Hoenn games onward.  So here we go: Silver.

Continue reading “Pokémon Generations: Episodes 5 and 6” →

VikingBoyBilly asks:

If you were tasked to think of one idea to make Eevee completely overpowered and broken without evolving, what would you come up with?

…well, without thinking too hard about why we’re doing this, I’d probably give her an ability that sort of combines Conversion 2 with Protean – Eevee, the ultimate adapter, automatically shifts her type to gain resistance or (if possible) immunity to all incoming attacks.  That’s immunity to 8/18 types and resistance to everything else.  Slap an Eviolite on that and it’ll survive damn near anything, up to and including Primal Kyogre’s Origin Pulse.  Of course, I don’t exactly know what you’d do with Eevee at that point other than maybe Baton Pass some Curses, but you said “one idea” so that’ll have to do.

Pokémon Generations: Episode 4

Maybe Origins encouraged me to set my expectations for this series too high.  After all, a four to five minute short doesn’t exactly lend itself to novel and nuanced interpretations of beloved but two-dimensional characters.  It seems quite plausible that I’m being overly critical here.

On the other hand “overly critical” is pretty much my schtick so let’s do more of it.

Continue reading “Pokémon Generations: Episode 4” →

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.