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.
You didn’t just miss Go – you also missed regional-variant Pokémon finally being a thing in the games. We now live in a world inhabited by ice-breathing Vulpix and long-necked Exeggutors.
Okay but I missed that deliberately because I avoid spoilers from upcoming Pokémon games and I DIDN’T READ ANY OF WHAT YOU JUST SAID LA LA LA I’M NOT LISTENING
Could you talk a bit about Evolutionary Stones, particularly the more mysterious ones like the Dawn Stone (maybe relating it to your Pokémon Gender/Breeding theory?) and why the Nidos evolve with the Moon Stone
You know, I think I’ve been asked this before, ages ago; hold on a bit…
Yes, here it is; the second half of this question.
…wait, hang on.
That was YOU! YOU’VE asked me this before!
Ah, whatever; it was nearly four years ago, I’m sure I have different and even more wildly speculative things to say about it now.
Continue reading “batabid asks:”The name ‘Tough Claws’ is such a waste, in my opinion. It could and should have been used for an Ability that increases the damage output of scratching or clawing moves, like Scratch, Cut, Metal Claw, Shadow Claw, etc. (like Iron Fist or Strong Jaw) rather than use it for an Ability that raises any generic contact move. What do you think?
Well, I only think the name would be a “waste” if it meant that they couldn’t then make another ability like that at a later point, if they so choose. They could just call it something different – “sharp blades,” maybe? Potential ability names are a pretty broad possibility space. “Tough Claws” is not the greatest naming choice, I’ll give you that; I think I would have called it something that sounded less specific, like “Brute Strength,” but I’m not particularly bothered by it.
I just want to hug you.
Awww, that’s sweet. I want to hug you too, anonymous grey sphere.
My nidorino was put to sleep in battle and then got its defense lowered by leer. How does that work? How do things like leer, scary face, or mean look work on sleeping pokemon?
I dunno. Magic?
Truth is, the battle mechanics of the Pokémon games are not really meant as a 100% accurate simulation of anything, and there are probably a million and one things that don’t make too much sense when you look too closely at them, but which we just accept because the game needs to have understandable and predictable rules in order to be playable. I think this is best illustrated by looking at what happens when you run the exact same imaginary scenario (a Pokémon using an intimidation technique like Leer on a sleeping opponent) through a different set of rules – those of the trading card game. Exactly what Leer does in the TCG varies slightly depending on the Pokémon using it, but basically it tends to stop the target from attacking, and sometimes also from switching out, during its next turn (Mean Look only seems to prevent switching; Scary Face always prevents both). So what happens when it’s used on a sleeping Pokémon? Well, sleeping Pokémon normally can’t do either of those things in the TCG anyway, so the answer is “nothing,” much as you’d expect. Neither system of rules is ever going to be complex enough to provide the intuitively “correct” answer to every possible imagined scenario; there are always going to be weird corner cases that throw up an interaction that just doesn’t seem to make sense. I think in those situations the best thing to do is ask “what would probably happen in the anime?” because the anime is less constrained by the need for absolute consistency in the rules – and in this case, I suspect the answer (if anyone ever actually made a move like that, which strikes me as unlikely) is, again, “nothing.”
Religious attacks aside, I think your recent post on the Orlando shootings were well stated. It sickens me that this kind of thing happens so often in our country, and I can’t imagine any logical reason to allow civilians access to assault rifles. I just want to say I know plenty of religious people on your side. And don’t feel guilty for being “spared” of this sort of attack. Ideally, we’ll reach a time where humans aren’t slaughtered for trivial reasons (or any at all). I’m glad you’re safe.
Thanks; I appreciate the message. I’m sorry if that part bothered you; emotions were running a bit high when I wrote that, but I have Christian, Muslim and Jewish friends, some of whom are gay or bisexual themselves. It’s just frustrating to see religion used to justify bigotry over and over again because a small minority still want to worship a bloodthirsty Bronze Age sky god instead of his 21st century reincarnation – as I’m sure many of the religious would agree.
Homosexuality in the Pokemon series? maybe realationship between human characters or the life style of some species, how feasible is it?
I’m not totally sure what you’re getting at here – by “feasible” do you mean “would Game Freak get away with it?” Because I imagine in Japan they would but in America it might be a bit of a tough sell, which is probably why we don’t see it in the anime (not that romantic relationships are a major theme of the Pokémon anime anyway). As for the Pokémon themselves… well, pretty much the one thing we know is that you won’t get an egg from two Pokémon of the same gender, and that Attract never works on Pokémon of the same gender. Since the only real constant in how the games talk about Pokémon breeding is that no-one actually seems to know much about how it works (not to mention the fact that some Pokémon species appear to be single-sex), that could mean just about anything.
Homosexuality is well-documented in many animal species in the real world, most famously giraffes (who, on average, actually seem to have more gay sex than straight sex), bonobos, penguins, and dolphins (who have been known to engage in – I swear I am not making this up – blowhole sex). I think it’s reasonable to assume that the Pokémon world works like the real one unless stated otherwise, so homosexuality is probably just as common; it just gets totally lost in the obscuring fog that surrounds everything even remotely connected to Pokémon reproduction.
What IS PP? How is it that a Pokémon can’t use e.g. Cut or Rock Smash in battle because they’ve run out of PP but they can still use them outside battle?
Well, there are gameplay reasons it has to be that way – if field moves were dependent on PP you could become trapped in certain areas and unable to return to a Pokémon Centre. In any case, for a lot of field moves it’s not like the combat and out-of-combat uses are actually the same or even similar – clearly we’re not supposed to imagine that using Surf (a special attack usually depicted as a powerful wave) involves vigorously swimming at the opponent with your trainer on your back. Even when the two actions are basically similar, I would imagine that doing something in the middle of a fight is a good deal more stressful and difficult than doing it any other time. Me, I think of PP as a vague measure of a Pokémon’s energy or exhaustion, the same way as HP is a vague measure of a Pokémon’s health or injuries. Obviously HP was never meant to be a realistic and precise account of the billion and one different kinds of godawful nonsense that can happen to a Pokémon on a daily basis; it’s just a number that answers the question “can I or can I not keep fighting?” and we accept that without thinking, even though it clearly doesn’t make much sense, because HP is an abstraction that literally everyone has been using for decades. PP is the same kind of thing.
I know you don’t like to speculate, but what would your opinion be on Sun and Moon bringing in facets of the Ranger games / mentality into the main series (as some people apparently think due to similarities between the ranger regions and alola)? It’s pretty unlikely, but what do you think such a thing could add to world-fleshing-outness, conflict, story, et cetera?
Well, I think you’re right about it being unlikely – the fact that Alola is an island region (if that’s what we’re getting at? Not sure what else there is) seems like a pretty flimsy reason to make a prediction like that to me. But having said that, I don’t think it would necessarily be a bad idea to, say, replace HMs for field moves with a minigame where you convince a wild Pokémon to temporarily join you and help you to clear an obstacle. HM moves are a pain, and you can potentially get a nice sense of negotiation with the wild Pokémon, show how they fit into their environment, and emphasise that wild areas really belong to them. Other parts of the Ranger philosophy, like having only one partner Pokémon rather than large teams, seem incompatible with the basic assumptions of the gameplay; you could have characters who live with Pokémon in that way, but I suspect that much of the significance of that would be lost if the player wasn’t the one doing it. If you don’t actually play from the Rangers’ perspective, they probably just seem from the outside like trainers who only have one Pokémon. You can’t really make the Rangers the villains either, for obvious reasons, although a faction like that certainly would have been an interesting presence in a story like that of Black and White, just to make things more complicated for everyone – what would they have thought of Ghetsis’ rhetoric of Pokémon liberation? It would be also interesting to introduce some new mechanics that emphasise the uniqueness of the player’s relationship with the starter Pokémon in the same way as the Ranger games do, but that’s probably something you have to build from scratch to serve the very different gameplay of the core series.
The rotomdex is freaky! It’s too drastic of a change! Please beg gamefreak to keep everything exactly the same, waaaah.
I like the Rotomdex! I think it raises a lot of interesting questions. The developers of the Pokédex have apparently chosen, instead of going to all the trouble and expense of programming an AI, to just enlist a Pokémon to do it. Unlike all the stuff we’ve seen Rotom inhabit before, this next-generation Pokédex is actually designed to have a Rotom in it. Does it still work without one? The trailer seems to imply that it either doesn’t work at all, or operates at diminished capacity. What does that say about what Rotom does while inside an appliance? Can it increase the efficiency of other machines? Does a fridge with a Rotom in it keep things cool more effectively than a normal fridge? If the Pokédex isn’t complete without a Rotom, how do they sustain production? Do they have to breed Rotom, or are they simply not able to make many of these things? Can Rotom battle in this shape, and if so, what abilities does it confer? And apparently the Pokédex allows Rotom to talk – that’s a pretty neat perk. What will its thoughts be on the whole thing? Does Rotom actually know everything in the Pokédex, or can it just display that information for the player? Lots to play with there.
Pokémaniacal 