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.
Will you write an article on Mega Evolutions someday? I’m sure a lot of people would love to hear what you think about it (I know I would)!
I do mean to stick one in at the end of the X and Y Pokémon reviews. Not entirely sure what I’ll say about it as my thoughts on the matter are fairly straightforward, but we’ll see what I come up with.
Please do a series on the rivals (like you did with the Champions)! Of course, you can skip Blue and just jump straight to Silver!
That’s one of the things that I’ve been meaning to do for literally years, but there’s always been something more immediately important to write about and it keeps getting lost. Still… I don’t think there’s anything else I’d particularly prefer to write about after finishing the X and Y Pokémon reviews… Yeah; let’s go with that.
Did you know that Chandelure’s Hidden Ability has been changed from Shadow Tag to Infiltrator? This opens up the possibility of other Pokémon to have one (or more) of their Abilities to be changed (at least, it sets a precedent)! Any specific Pokémon in mind whose Ability/(ies) you’d like to be changed?
Well, it’s worth pointing out that there has never been a Chandelure with Shadow Tag – Dream World Litwick were never released in generation V, and to my knowledge no AI opponent ever used one either, not even Ingo and Emmet, so they’re changing something that only ever existed in unused coding and our own fevered power fantasies anyway. I doubt this is an indication that they’re willing to start mucking around with existing abilities that are actually used in practice, and I wouldn’t call it a precedent for that. (EDIT: However, the fact that Scolipede’s was changed from Quick Feet to Speed Boost absolutely is. Derp. Doesn’t really change the rest of this answer anyway, though.) For the most part, abilities I’d want to see changed are the ones that are just insultingly bad, like Run Away, Keen Eye and Illuminate, and personally I would fix those by improving the ability itself (see e.g. Lightningrod and Storm Drain), not by changing which Pokémon received it. I can’t think of any off the top of my head that I would actually want to redistribute, though there are probably at least a couple out there.
I was just playing Pokemon X, and my Bellossom’s Sleep Powder missed four times, which got me thinking: What if a low accuracy move’s accuracy goes higher (temporarily) when it misses? For example, I use Sleep Powder once, and it misses. It’s accuracy now goes from 75 to 85 (For Ex), so that it gives me (the user) a better chance at hitting, and gives missing something of a bonus. I mean, the Pokemon (Bellossom, in this case) should get the hang of it. Missing four times is kind of ridiculous.
Would you also implement the logical corollary – that moves become less accurate after a successful hit? After all, if you manage to hit three targets in a row with Focus Blast, your opponent is surely going to get the hang of dodging the damn things. In any luck-based system, things sometimes just don’t go our way, and that would still be the case with these revisions – your Bellossom could still miss three times in a row, and although it would happen much less often, that very fact would make it even more frustrating when it did. I don’t think it’d be a harmful change, but I’m not terribly enthused about it either.
Just rereading your comments on Farfetch’d in the “worst pokemon” category, and I thought of how gen. VI boosted him somewhat with the changes to the critical hits mechanics, which makes him one of very few pokemon who can consistently deliver 100% critical hits all the time. Sure, he’s still far from being strong in any sense of the word, but do you think that this at least gave him a niche to excel in? Or is it merely a single step in the right direction, with many more to go?
Explanation for anyone behind on this: critical hits only do x1.5 damage in X and Y, not x2, but the critical hit rate scales more rapidly with bonuses like a Scope Lens or the Super Luck ability, to the point that many combinations will actually give you a 100% critical hit rate. For most Pokémon, using Focus Energy is the way to do this, but Farfetch’d has the distinction of being able to achieve 100% right out of the box, without having to buff himself first, by using his signature item (the Stick) and sticking to moves that already score a lot of critical hits, of which he has four – Slash, Night Slash, Leaf Blade and Air Cutter (the last of which is unfortunately special and therefore doesn’t work so well with the other three). Even his other attacks will still have a 50% critical hit rate.
Continue reading “Anonymous asks:”I don’t know if you have answered this before but, do you have any theory about what happens to Pokémon once their trainer die?
Hmm. Tricky.
I feel like this must have happened in the anime before, but only three examples readily come to mind, all of which are unusual cases simply because of the nature of the Pokémon involved (please share any other examples, as I’m sure there are more I’m not thinking of):
Continue reading “Anonymous asks:”Hmm. Never really thought about them before. Let’s see…
So, their teams are as follows (movesets and items are generally an improvement on their basic lineups):
Red: As his Heart Gold/Soul Silver team
Blue: As his Heart Gold/Soul Silver team, but swapping Pidgeot for Aerodactyl
Lance: Salamence, Haxorus, Kingdra, Flygon, Hydreigon, Dragonite
Steven: As his Emerald team, but swapping Skarmory and Claydol for Archeops and Excadrill
Wallace: Sharpedo, Swampert, Walrein, Starmie, Ludicolo and Milotic
Cynthia: As her Black 2/White 2 casual team, but swapping Milotic for Roserade
Alder: Reuniclus, Chandelure, Krookodile, Conkeldurr, Braviary and Volcarona
So, Red doesn’t change at all, and Cynthia just reverts to another of the Pokémon she used on Platinum. It’s odd that Blue would replace Pidgeot, who is his strongest Pokémon on Heart Gold and Soul Silver, but throwing in Aerodactyl instead certainly makes for a more menacing line-up, and fits his obsession with rare Pokémon (although I seriously question his decision to teach it Fire Blast, particularly in a Choice Band set…). The changes to Steven are, likewise, straightforward; Archeops over Skarmory fits his interest in rare stones and fossils; Excadrill over Claydol gives him another Steel-type to replace Skarmory and helps him to dig up cool new rocks. I’m really not sure about Head Smash on Archeops with Defeatist to worry about, but I suppose it combos decently with Sitrus Berry and Acrobatics, and I’m glad to see the back of that bat$#!t special attacker Aggron set he used in the third generation games.
Wallace changes out most of his team, keeping only Ludicolo and his signature Pokémon, Milotic. Wallace doesn’t have much of a unifying theme to begin with other than being a Water trainer; his battle philosophy revolves around grace and elegance, but all that translated to in Emerald, as far as I could tell, was using Pokémon who were a pain to kill, like Amnesiac Whiscash and Double Team Ludicolo. His new team seems generally more heavy on offence, mostly due to the presence of Sharpedo and Starmie, but I don’t think that makes it any more or less appropriate to him. I’m not keen on the fact that his Swampert is a special attacker, but I suppose it’s not as bad an idea as a special Aggron.
I actually don’t like Lance’s all-Dragon team much, simply because I was fond of the way his original Gold and Silver team worked around the single-type limitation while still making him very obviously a ‘Dragon Master.’ It made him stick out a bit amongst all the other single-type Gym Leaders and Elite Four members. Multiple Dragonite is obviously a no-go, but I think I would have gone with a compromise team, replacing Haxorus and Flygon with Aerodactyl and Charizard, and maybe Gyarados over Kingdra too. Also, Solarbeam on Flygon, particularly without Sunny Day anywhere on his team, strikes me as a… poor decision, especially when he could have just given it Flamethrower or Fire Blast.
Alder certainly gets more difficult by losing his focus on Bug-types, and there was nothing about Escavalier or Accelgor that made them strikingly appropriate for him (I mean, Reuniclus and Chandelure are kind of weird choices for Alder as well since they’re very calm and subdued by nature, but whatever). Conkeldurr and Braviary appear on his casual Black 2/White 2 team as replacements for Druddigon and Vanilluxe, and I think they’re good ones; they’re more dangerous on the whole, and they fit Alder’s energetic style. It’s unfortunate that Bouffalant is gone, because he almost works as a secondary signature Pokémon for Alder, sharing his excitable temperament and ridiculous hair. Krookodile is okay as a replacement, I suppose, and probably stronger. I’m neither here nor there on Alder’s lineup as a whole.
You’re in luck. Jim the Editor has decreed that Dedenne will be next on the list. My joy knows no bounds.
Well, “less is more” is very much a core belief of mine in picking apart this franchise. I don’t think it’s so much a matter of ‘more clearly delineated roles,’ because most Pokémon do have that down pretty well anyway; the problem is how easy it is to be outclassed by things that have a similar roles, and making moves less widely available might help with that. The presence of TMs in some ways is a little unfortunate, because the increasing ease with which we’ve been able to teach those moves over the years (first breeding to recycle them, then just outright reusable TMs) sort of devalues the Pokémon lucky enough to actually get some of those awesome moves in their level-up lists. Panpour is the only Pokémon in the game who naturally learns Scald! Did you know that? I sure didn’t. Do you care? I sure don’t, because just about every other Water Pokémon who isn’t also an Ice-type gets it too!
This is sort of part of the messed-up incomplete charm of the original Red and Blue – a lot of Pokémon just don’t have access to very good techniques, and with single-use TMs and no breeding, you have to think long and hard about what to do with those precious discs (well… except for the part where the games are so horribly glitchy that you can basically turn them inside out and make them your bitches without any special equipment or expertise whatsoever, but I’m a theoretical kind of guy, so sue me). It was a little unfortunate that this ‘feature’ of Red and Blue came with little, if any, thought for game balance (something that I doubt was a major fixture in Game Freak’s mind at the time), so some of its victims are Pokémon like poor Sandslash, who will never get any Ground attacks at all unless you spend your Earthquake TM on him, and remains lacklustre even if you do. Maybe today, though, it’d be a neat balancing factor on a really powerful Ground-type like (say) Excadrill if Game Freak were willing to arbitrarily say “yeah no Earthquake for you lol use the goddamn signature move we gave you” (and, in that particular case, it encourages Excadrill to be more like Excadrill too). Might also give more of a point to some moves that look and sound cool but just have no reason to be used, ever, like Aurora Beam – every Pokémon that learns it also gets Ice Beam, with the exception of one (Xerneas, who has better things to do with his time).
On the other hand, can you imagine the backlash from the fanbase if that were implemented in a future game and hundreds of Pokémon lost many of their best tricks? People get annoyed enough by the obsolescence of move tutors and the occasional TM. I sure wouldn’t want to be the one to announce that. Accumulating more and more skills and abilities for Pokémon just seems to be the way this franchise typically operates, and I don’t think that’s likely to change any time soon, whatever I might think of it.
Well, if I’m understanding you correctly, you can use two moves in one turn. You have to give up a moveslot to do it, which is a big sacrifice, fair enough, but in return you’re getting probably about 50% more attack power (being conservative because your second attack might be made without STAB, or be resisted or something). People happily give up the ability to switch attacks for that kind of power (by using a Choice Band or Choice Specs). That’s also without getting into the kind of combos you can pull. You can use Dragon Dance and Outrage in a single turn, potentially giving your opponent no chance to respond if you were already faster than whatever they had out. Ghost-types can paralyse you with Thunder Wave and follow up with Hex. Dream Eater is finally viable against human players for the first time in Pokémon’s history. Basically, you get one attack, which would otherwise be a perfectly good use of your turn, and then you get a second attack with some kind of bonus which would normally require careful set-up or big risks. It also magnifies the number of possibilities your opponent has to be able to prepare for on any given turn.
I think this would be a very fun signature move on a specific Pokémon, something with lacklustre stats, but an interesting movepool with lots of neat support techniques (something like Spinda, maybe?). The idea of making it widely available sets off a series of very loud and insistent alarm bells in my head, though.
Pokémaniacal 