Tag: QandA

Anonymous asks:

I realize now that my previous question may have been misleading. When I said “weird” I wasn’t referring to the grass/fighting type combination itself, as that’s been done several times, but to the idea of a mysterious owl suddenly evolving into an aggressive grass/fighting bird.

Imagine, though. Rowlet turns into a badass fighting or dragon type, litten into a large, chubby, lovable cat, and popplio into a grotesque mammoth/walrus-like thing. Nobody will be satisfied.

The previous question alluded to here: “Watch rowlet lose its flying type upon evolving and become a grass/fighting type or something even weirder. That would certainly be interesting”

See, I don’t think that sort of thing is likely, purely because the starters are the one place where, more than any other (except maybe the mascot legendaries), they want mass appeal, and while that doesn’t exactly rule out weird and quirky designs for the evolved forms, I believe it makes Game Freak more likely to incline towards safe choices.  Looking back at past starters… they really just don’t tend to “do” major reversals in aesthetics and design as they evolve.  I suspect there’s kind of an expectation that, when you choose your starter, you should pretty much know what you’re getting.  It’s supposed to be your partner, so if it evolves into something radically different and you don’t like it anymore, the design has kinda failed, in that particular respect.

Anonymous asks:

Suppose clear body, white smoke and flower veil also protected from self-inflicted stat loss. Thus, torkoal and heatmor would suck a bit less thanks to lack of overheat recoil, florges would be useful in doubles, and regirock migbt get some use out of superpower. My main worry is metagross, who’s already a solid pokemon and loves using hammer arm. Would that be too broken?

You know, I think we’re probably fine there?  Like, if there is any doubt about Metagross, then just apply the change only to White Smoke.  I don’t care if they have Overheat without recoil; Heatmor and Torkoal are still not going to dominate anything any time soon.  And even Metagross… well, Hammer Arm isn’t really its primary attack, and it also has the options of Bullet Punch and Agility anyway.  Like, it’s a buff to a Pokémon who probably doesn’t need it, but I honestly don’t think it’s a huge one?  Sure as hell pales in comparison to giving Metagross a Mega Evolution, and we were apparently fine with that.

Anonymous asks:

Having just replayed red, I cam honestly say… I just dont get what people mean when they say Blue is a jerk. Like, is it cos he’s kinds cocky? Hes not that hard to beat, so I cant really relate to the whole “rivals used to be challenging!” Rhetoric. imo the hardest rival was probably N.

I wasn’t aware there was such a thing as “rivals used to be challenging” rhetoric.  But sure, if there is, it strikes me as probably quite silly.

Anyway, Blue.  I think he’s clearly meant to be a jerk, because the whole thing with Oak turning up at the end of the game to call him out for not loving his Pokémon enough doesn’t really make sense if he’s not.  Personally I think that, above and beyond just thinking he’s better than you, he consistently goes out of his way to be insulting to you and diminish your accomplishments.  Like, I don’t know if he’s necessarily a bad person (well, I mean, he probably is, since he turns up at Silph Co. during the Team Rocket takeover and doesn’t lift a finger to help, but you could easily put that down to poor writing) but he always struck me as rather unpleasant to be around.

Anonymous asks:

The problem with cherrim’s flower gift ability is that it boosts the wrong stats. Imagine if cherrim had its special attack and speed state boosted in the sun! Not necessarily doubled, perhaps just buffed by 1.5. Cherrim doesn’t exactly have the best special movepool, but it does have STAB grass attacks + weather ball, which would make it a pretty competent sun sweeper.

Mmm, sure, sounds fun.  I mean, the problem with reliance on weather as a general thing is that Tyranitar still exists and can say “nope” to you at will, especially if you have as much riding on the weather as Cherrim does.  Also Cherrim’s starting attributes are poor enough that something like Chlorophyll Venusaur (who’s tough enough for Growth to be viable some of the time) might still outclass her.  But yeah, Grass + Fire has always been great, and this would probably make Cherrim suck less, though I wonder if it actually decreases her flexibility in doubles, since much of the point of Flower Gift is that it applies to your whole team, and you now have fewer partners who are eligible for the damage boost.  Then again, everyone likes speed.

Anonymous asks:

Remember when 100 base attack was “high”? Gamefreak just keeps giving new pokemon more and more insane stats, causing older pokemon to pale in comparison.

…no?  I mean, in generation I, Rhydon had 130 base attack, and Alakazam had 135 base special.  And sure, there are Pokémon that top that now, but when you cut out legendary and mega-evolved Pokémon (who are, y’know, supposed to make others pale in comparison) most of them are, like… not actually very good?  Like, Haxorus is fine, but I’d still rather take Garchomp or Dragonite.  Chandelure is good, but hardly dominating.  And when you look at the defensive stats, well, pretty consistently the best Pokémon are the well-rounded ones, not the ones who have one stat absurdly inflated – Avalugg is garbage, Florges and Goodra are fine but hardly the strongest around, and… well, Shuckle.  Just… Shuckle.  

So… I disagree with all parts of this statement.

Frezgle asks:

Re: Litten, it might only be black because of its fur being so oily as it says on the official website, and not the typical ‘black=dark’ thing. If they’re going with the bomb/explosion motif, and if the marking on its head really is based on the symbol for brimstone and not just random stripes, we could see something totally weird like Fire/Steel or even Fire/Rock.

Eh, I think they’re likely to stay away from “totally weird” on the starters; they want starters to have broad appeal, rather than be quirky and niche.  But sure, rule nothing out.  As always, I am the very soul of apathy as far as predicting things about upcoming games.

Godzillakiryu91 asks:

What seven would that be, and what would decide where an existing Pokemon would get placed?

I knew someone would ask that next.

To be honest it’s not even so much a revision of the current type chart as throwing it out altogether and starting from scratch.  Sort of a “can I just do this completely differently?” thought experiment, which probably has to go along with massive changes to how we do status effects, PP, accuracy, and several other things (including doing away with physical/special).  Pokémon don’t even have types at all, they just have weaknesses and resistances to attack types (of which attacks can have one, two, or even none), and those are assigned case-by-case.  

Continue reading “Godzillakiryu91 asks:” →

vikingboybilly asks:

The canned idea of a BIRD type is starting to grow on me. It would have been GameFreak’s way of differentiating the wind element from all the NORMAL birds in the game, and they wouldn’t have had the NORMAL type on them. This also got me thinking that maybe FISH types would be cool to round out the BIRD and BUG types. Some other ideas: EARTH, SNOW, WOOD, FOSSIL, MAGIC, MUSIC, and of course, LIGHT. I’ve also seen COSMIC on youtube. Feel free to praise or criticize any of my choices.

Well, that’s the thing, I have more of an inclination (unpopular, I think, in the Pokémon community) to reduce the type chart down rather than add more to it.  So I would reject all of those, as well as probably several of the existing types, including Ground, Bug, Flying and Dragon.  I recently thought through this, for no particular reason, and I think you could reasonably cut it down to as few as seven.  So yeah.  I think we’re just coming at this whole thing from opposite directions entirely.

EDIT: The inevitable follow-up question.