(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[pika pal]

Here's my question: Does anyone know what the Japanese (or other languages) use as wording for the "Timeline" talk at the Crystal Pool scene? As someone who played a lot of PS1 era RPG's and early 3D Sonic games, rough translations completely losing/changing the meaning of a line isn't unfamiliar territory to me: a Sonic Heroes line for example mixes up referring to a character as "a robot" instead of "artificial" (like organic but created through experiments), which throws off a follow-up line about Cloning and the character's identity.

Like in this case, is "timeline" definitely meant to refer to an alternate version of history/the future as opposed to being a sloppy word for a different period in time?

I still hold to my theory that the Paradox Pokemon are essentially a semi-permanent Terastalization affecting specimens of the Pokemon (EX: Great Tusk is a Tera Fighting Donphan that's stuck halfway there). Terapagos and the Tera Crystals powering the time machine has the effect of essentially fishing out the base Pokemon and the energy causes them to turn into a form based on a Tera Type. The Illustrations of Great Tusk and Iron Treads don't look that far off from more-stylized depictions of Donphan, and to my knowledge they're the only images of Paradoxes we're shown from Heath's Expedition (excluding the explicitly-dreamed Combination Mon). It could just be confirmation bias by the Professor, where the machine brings out a Mon that looks KIND OF like Donphan but not quite, so they take it for an abnormal creature out of the book, where Heath might have recorded them as different species but they would be more akin to Regional Forms of those mons, with no research taking place to answer the question since Heath's team was discredited.

So Great Tusk or Slither Wing isn't what Ancient Donphan or Volcarona look like, so much as they pulled in a Donphan and the Terastal energy caused what we know as GT to come out of the machine.

 

[R_N]

Here's my question: Does anyone know what the Japanese (or other languages) use as wording for the "Timeline" talk at the Crystal Pool scene? As someone who played a lot of PS1 era RPG's and early 3D Sonic games, rough translations completely losing/changing the meaning of a line isn't unfamiliar territory to me: a Sonic Heroes line for example mixes up referring to a character as "a robot" instead of "artificial" (like organic but created through experiments), which throws off a follow-up line about Cloning and the character's identity.

Like in this case, is "timeline" definitely meant to refer to an alternate version of history/the future as opposed to being a sloppy word for a different period in time?

オーリム『この出会(であ)いも　地続(じつづ)きの
過去(かこ)・未来(みらい)では　ないかもしれない

オーリム『異なる時間軸の　ポケモンを
捕まえて　現代へ　呼びだす……

First one is roughly "we may not be from your past/future" and the second one is "Pokemon from different timelines". This is via deepL translation so ymmv (especially the first one, it seemed very rough on that)


I will say that while I was in Poke Corpus for this, it brought up the AI's exerpt about it.
It sends Poké Balls to a different point on the
timeline to catch Pokémon there, and it can
then draw them back here to the present.

モンスターボールを　転送(てんそう)し
異(こと)なる時間軸(じかんじく)の　ポケモンを　捕(つか)まえて
現代(げんだい)へと　呼(よ)びだすことが　できる

Transfer the Monster Ball.
And catch Pokémon from a different time line.
and recall them to the present day.

However, just about all the other translations follow what the English puts forth: brought along the timeline and to the modern day.

So if there's any sort of nuance being lost in either conversation it's probably on the machine translation.
https://abcboy101.github.io/poke-co...llections=ScarletViolet&languages=en-US,en-GB

Here's the corpus if you want to look at it yourself, or if someone wants to look at the full context of the conversations in other languages. There's been several times I've seen translation back & forths zero in on one line but if you view both conversations in full it's clear the context is meant to be the same

I still hold to my theory that the Paradox Pokemon are essentially a semi-permanent Terastalization affecting specimens of the Pokemon (EX: Great Tusk is a Tera Fighting Donphan that's stuck halfway there). Terapagos and the Tera Crystals powering the time machine has the effect of essentially fishing out the base Pokemon and the energy causes them to turn into a form based on a Tera Type. The Illustrations of Great Tusk and Iron Treads don't look that far off from more-stylized depictions of Donphan, and to my knowledge they're the only images of Paradoxes we're shown from Heath's Expedition (excluding the explicitly-dreamed Combination Mon). It could just be confirmation bias by the Professor, where the machine brings out a Mon that looks KIND OF like Donphan but not quite, so they take it for an abnormal creature out of the book, where Heath might have recorded them as different species but they would be more akin to Regional Forms of those mons, with no research taking place to answer the question since Heath's team was discredited.

For what it's worth they had photos of Great Tusk/Iron Treads but it's pretty cryptid esque. And there are presumably other depictions of the paradoxes in the rest of the book, we just don't get to see them so we don't know if they had more photos or just drawings.

 

[Esserise]

Here's my question: Does anyone know what the Japanese (or other languages) use as wording for the "Timeline" talk at the Crystal Pool scene? As someone who played a lot of PS1 era RPG's and early 3D Sonic games, rough translations completely losing/changing the meaning of a line isn't unfamiliar territory to me: a Sonic Heroes line for example mixes up referring to a character as "a robot" instead of "artificial" (like organic but created through experiments), which throws off a follow-up line about Cloning and the character's identity.

Like in this case, is "timeline" definitely meant to refer to an alternate version of history/the future as opposed to being a sloppy word for a different period in time?

R_N covered the points I was going to hit, but I’ll still throw this into the ring for consideration: a user on the Bulbapedia talk page for Paradox Pokémon makes the case that the wording in Japanese always suggested that the Pokémon were drawn from alternate timelines, even in the base game, and as such, the Japanese part of the fandom usually discussed them in those terms from the start. Maybe something worth looking into, but personally I think the most interesting point is that the English version of the game sort of implies two different things — the AI Professor’s dialogue is generally taken to mean that the machine transports Pokémon directly from the past or future, whereas the real Professor says they’re brought over from alternate timelines — while the original Japanese appears to be more consistent.

 

[R_N]

R_N covered the points I was going to hit, but I’ll still throw this into the ring for consideration: a user on the Bulbapedia talk page for Paradox Pokémon makes the case that the wording in Japanese always suggested that the Pokémon were drawn from alternate timelines, even in the base game, and as such, the Japanese part of the fandom usually discussed them in those terms from the start. Maybe something worth looking into, but personally I think the most interesting point is that the English version of the game sort of implies two different things — the AI Professor’s dialogue is generally taken to mean that the machine transports Pokémon directly from the past or future, whereas the real Professor says they’re brought over from alternate timelines — while the original Japanese appears to be more consistent.

It'd be nice if we had a deeper look into the Japanese fandom's discussions in general, to get a better read of things. But obviously that's harder than not.

I wonder if there was any notes from the story writers while translating these. There's lots of ways for this to have shaken out the way it did ; it's also interesting to me that Korean follows the English lead when I figured it'd follow the Japanese lead (like Chinese seemingly does).

 

[Noah3475]

I was very annoyed at Spear Pillar. I walked up to Mars and Jupiter, saved the game, and defeated them with relative ease with Barry's help. The Lake Legendary Pokémon freed Dialga from Cyrus' clutches, and he challenged me to battle in his rage. My Pokémon were not even LV.40, and included Bibarel and Finneon for HM usage, so I was unsurprised when I was swept by Honchkrow and Gyarados. "OK, I will purchase a few medicine items and see which of my six battle Pokémon would perform the best against him". I soft-reset the game, and began to depart from Spear Pillar... Mars then says, "You don't think that you can just run off now, do you?" To which I thought, "Of course I can, unless I am at the Pokémon League, I can go wherever I want". The game disagreed. Never mind that I wasn't at the Pokémon League, or that my ace Pokémon, Mattrex , was LV.40 to Cyrus' LV.48 Weavile, or that I barely had any items... No, I must defeat Mars, Jupiter and Cyrus in one sitting, and if that pseudo-softlocks me into my first and only file-recorded defeat, so be it. Barry was incredibly helpful in healing my Pokémon after the Multi Battle with Mars and Jupiter, but I still only defeated Cyrus through well-timed usage of the few X-Items, Max Potion and Full Restore I picked up on various Routes. After I narrowly vanquished Cyrus, Dawn and Prof. Rowan saw fit to detain me further until I caught Dialga. I wisely bought 80 Poke Balls for a Shiny Pokémon earlier in my adventure, and those Poke Balls allowed me to save my Master Ball.
The decision to confine the player to the Spear Pillar until after the climax of the game's plot replaced any enjoyment or satisfaction I might have felt with bewilderment and agitation.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

I was very annoyed at Spear Pillar. I walked up to Mars and Jupiter, saved the game, and defeated them with relative ease with Barry's help. The Lake Legendary Pokémon freed Dialga from Cyrus' clutches, and he challenged me to battle in his rage. My Pokémon were not even LV.40, and included Bibarel and Finneon for HM usage, so I was unsurprised when I was swept by Honchkrow and Gyarados. "OK, I will purchase a few medicine items and see which of my six battle Pokémon would perform the best against him". I soft-reset the game, and began to depart from Spear Pillar... Mars then says, "You don't think that you can just run off now, do you?" To which I thought, "Of course I can, unless I am at the Pokémon League, I can go wherever I want". The game disagreed. Never mind that I wasn't at the Pokémon League, or that my ace Pokémon, Mattrex , was LV.40 to Cyrus' LV.48 Weavile, or that I barely had any items... No, I must defeat Mars, Jupiter and Cyrus in one sitting, and if that pseudo-softlocks me into my first and only file-recorded defeat, so be it. Barry was incredibly helpful in healing my Pokémon after the Multi Battle with Mars and Jupiter, but I still only defeated Cyrus through well-timed usage of the few X-Items, Max Potion and Full Restore I picked up on various Routes. After I narrowly vanquished Cyrus, Dawn and Prof. Rowan saw fit to detain me further until I caught Dialga. I wisely bought 80 Poke Balls for a Shiny Pokémon earlier in my adventure, and those Poke Balls allowed me to save my Master Ball.
The decision to confine the player to the Spear Pillar until after the climax of the game's plot replaced any enjoyment or satisfaction I might have felt with bewilderment and agitation.

I guess I understand wanting your save file to be a continuous string of victories, but if you were kinda expecting to lose to Cyrus anyway, why does it matter whether or not the loss is "file-recorded"? If you just accepted the defeat and blacked out to Cyrus you would've been taken back to the Pokemon Center, so you weren't actually soft-locked in any meaningful sense.

Your arbitrary need to not let the game 'remember' your loss doesn't constitute a flaw on the game's part. Besides, it sounds like being forced (well, ""forced"") to strategise with the resources you had on hand led to a interesting challenge!

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I guess I understand wanting your save file to be a continuous string of victories, but if you were kinda expecting to lose to Cyrus anyway, why does it matter whether or not the loss is "file-recorded"? If you just accepted the defeat and blacked out to Cyrus you would've been taken back to the Pokemon Center, so you weren't actually soft-locked in any meaningful sense.

Your arbitrary need to not let the game 'remember' your loss doesn't constitute a flaw on the game's part. Besides, it sounds like being forced (well, ""forced"") to strategise with the resources you had on hand led to a interesting challenge!

He's got a point, though. DP does a similar thing to this in another part of the game: once you've been to the Contest Hall, you can't leave Hearthome City without defeating Barry, so if you're underlevelled or want/need to catch more Pokemon, bad luck! It was never a massive problem for me (outside of the Pearl run I did last year) but I can imagine it was a source of frustration for some people.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

He's got a point, though. DP does a similar thing to this in another part of the game: once you've been to the Contest Hall, you can't leave Hearthome City without defeating Barry, so if you're underlevelled or want/need to catch more Pokemon, bad luck! It was never a massive problem for me (outside of the Pearl run I did last year) but I can imagine it was a source of frustration for some people.

But that's an entirely separate criticism, one that I agree with and one that they didn't make. Genuine soft-locks are bad!

 

[ant4456]

Wait, Barry blocks you if you go West?

I actually haven't tried that before so I didn't even know wtf

 

[QuentinQuonce]

But that's an entirely separate criticism, one that I agree with and one that they didn't make. Genuine soft-locks are bad!

I may have misunderstood but their original post was about not being able to leave Spear Pillar without defeating three opponents in a row.

The Hearthome one is a more genuine softlock but the Spear Pillar one is similarly crappy - true it can be mitigated by being very well-prepared and having a massive stock of healing items, but not everyone is. Hearthome at least lets you use the Pokemart.

 

[R_N]

I try not to rag on Serebii too much, because I find more often than not their site is still very useful for information but the way he decided to handle TMs in SV is mind numbingly worthless

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Most trades with NPCs ask for a species that's not hard to get ("can I have this common Pokemon found right outside my hometown in exchange for something far more valuable?")

Except in Hoenn, where the NPCs ask for

• Slakoth (5% appearance rate)
• Pikachu (5% appearance rate, and you can't even force encounters with Static since this trade is only in RS)
• Bellossom (Oddish isn't rare, but there's only one Sun Stone in the overworld and getting another one is outright impossible in Sapphire, so you'd have to be okay with giving up your only Bellossom)
• Ralts (4% appearance rate)
• Volbeat (1% appearance rate)
• Bagon (25% appearance rate, but notoriously a pain to get)
• Skitty (2% appearance rate)

The Pokemon you get in return aren't even that bad (apart from their trash IVs) but they made these far more difficult than they had any right to be.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I was very annoyed at Spear Pillar. I walked up to Mars and Jupiter, saved the game, and defeated them with relative ease with Barry's help. The Lake Legendary Pokémon freed Dialga from Cyrus' clutches, and he challenged me to battle in his rage. My Pokémon were not even LV.40, and included Bibarel and Finneon for HM usage, so I was unsurprised when I was swept by Honchkrow and Gyarados. "OK, I will purchase a few medicine items and see which of my six battle Pokémon would perform the best against him". I soft-reset the game, and began to depart from Spear Pillar... Mars then says, "You don't think that you can just run off now, do you?" To which I thought, "Of course I can, unless I am at the Pokémon League, I can go wherever I want". The game disagreed. Never mind that I wasn't at the Pokémon League, or that my ace Pokémon, Mattrex , was LV.40 to Cyrus' LV.48 Weavile, or that I barely had any items... No, I must defeat Mars, Jupiter and Cyrus in one sitting, and if that pseudo-softlocks me into my first and only file-recorded defeat, so be it. Barry was incredibly helpful in healing my Pokémon after the Multi Battle with Mars and Jupiter, but I still only defeated Cyrus through well-timed usage of the few X-Items, Max Potion and Full Restore I picked up on various Routes. After I narrowly vanquished Cyrus, Dawn and Prof. Rowan saw fit to detain me further until I caught Dialga. I wisely bought 80 Poke Balls for a Shiny Pokémon earlier in my adventure, and those Poke Balls allowed me to save my Master Ball.
The decision to confine the player to the Spear Pillar until after the climax of the game's plot replaced any enjoyment or satisfaction I might have felt with bewilderment and agitation.

Can't you use Dig or an Escape Rope out of this?

Also, as Cobalt said, you could've jobbed. You did walk into the main event severely unprepared after all.

Even on DP, you were underleveled because at Veilstone, the absolute lowest level of Cyrus' ace is 43. So you should've known that no matter what, Spear Pillar wouldn't have less than Lv. 43 bosses.

Pulling up with one Lv. 40 Infernape and a dream is on you. We call this a Skill Issue.

 

[Noah3475]

I guess I understand wanting your save file to be a continuous string of victories, but if you were kinda expecting to lose to Cyrus anyway, why does it matter whether or not the loss is "file-recorded"? If you just accepted the defeat and blacked out to Cyrus you would've been taken back to the Pokemon Center, so you weren't actually soft-locked in any meaningful sense.

Your arbitrary need to not let the game 'remember' your loss doesn't constitute a flaw on the game's part. Besides, it sounds like being forced (well, ""forced"") to strategise with the resources you had on hand led to a interesting challenge!

It does not actually matter whether my loss is "file-recorded", but continuous victories is one of several arbitrary gameplay restrictions I place on myself, whether for game balance or personal amusement.

I may have misunderstood but their original post was about not being able to leave Spear Pillar without defeating three opponents in a row.

The Hearthome one is a more genuine softlock but the Spear Pillar one is similarly crappy - true it can be mitigated by being very well-prepared and having a massive stock of healing items, but not everyone is. Hearthome at least lets you use the Pokemart.

Your understanding is correct, I will get to my exact point, which I apparently failed to articulate, shortly.

Can't you use Dig or an Escape Rope out of this?

Also, as Cobalt said, you could've jobbed. You did walk into the main event severely unprepared after all.

Even on DP, you were underleveled because at Veilstone, the absolute lowest level of Cyrus' ace is 43. So you should've known that no matter what, Spear Pillar wouldn't have less than Lv. 43 bosses.

Pulling up with one Lv. 40 Infernape and a dream is on you. We call this a Skill Issue.

Escape Rope and Fly were disabled, and I had no Pokémon that knew Dig. My team was approximately:
LV.40 LV.38 LV.38 LV.38 LV.17 LV.17.
My point is that I disagree with the idea that my situation was caused by a skill issue. I do not mind the gauntlet of Mars & Jupiter -> Cyrus -> Dialga or its relatively high difficulty. I do mind that the game, without warning, arbitrarily cut me off from every gameplay resource that would be available at any other point in the campaign - Poke Marts, Vs. Seeker Trainers, etc. I felt punished for using a team that regularly punched above its weight in terms of Level and choosing to not hoard healing items. If, after several attempts, I decided the Spear Pillar sequence was overwhelming, I should have been able to leave the area, swap battle Pokemon ( ), increase their Levels and/or purchase a few items. However, because I save the game almost compulsively, I was stuck as-is.

 

[Sonikku A]

a Sonic Heroes line for example mixes up referring to a character as "a robot" instead of "artificial" (like organic but created through experiments), which throws off a follow-up line about Cloning and the character's identity.

Sorry to derail, but

The reason Eng said robot was cuz the Shadow Androids seen after Egg Albatross literally was one, flat out sparking. It's not organic

Not to mention even Windii's translation says Android, not cyborg, or more vague, "fake"

Out of context it seems like a translation error, but in context it's just Omega asserting that the original must still exist for reference. Either for cloning or making robo duplicates. The line isn't as literal given storyboard/natural conversation preferance, vs "in order to make a copy" *awkward double take even though this is way too basic of a statement*

"You know about cloning" - Directly addresses Rouge, doubles as a reminder she's a secret agent

"In order to make a copy" - not addressed to anyone, way too basic of a statement, inorganic and too subtle for dialogue when Omega isn't subtle in general

Nor does this impact anything. It's at max a translation quirk

If you want a better translation mistake, end of Shadow the Hedgehog 2005 where the president thanks Gerald, when it should be Shadow. It's just misplaced there. Or Last Story SA2 for Amy's speech to Shadow messing up 1 line, along with Knuckles randomly exposition dumping when Biolizard warps.

Taking text too literally divorced from game/event context is never a good thing, same for ignoring translated language's conversation or dialogue flow. I'd argue a lot of Windii's earlier stuff is too literal and flat

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

It does not actually matter whether my loss is "file-recorded", but continuous victories is one of several arbitrary gameplay restrictions I place on myself, whether for game balance or personal amusement.



Your understanding is correct, I will get to my exact point, which I apparently failed to articulate, shortly.



Escape Rope and Fly were disabled, and I had no Pokémon that knew Dig. My team was approximately:
LV.40 LV.38 LV.38 LV.38 LV.17 LV.17.
My point is that I disagree with the idea that my situation was caused by a skill issue. I do not mind the gauntlet of Mars & Jupiter -> Cyrus -> Dialga or its relatively high difficulty. I do mind that the game, without warning, arbitrarily cut me off from every gameplay resource that would be available at any other point in the campaign - Poke Marts, Vs. Seeker Trainers, etc. I felt punished for using a team that regularly punched above its weight in terms of Level and choosing to not hoard healing items. If, after several attempts, I decided the Spear Pillar sequence was overwhelming, I should have been able to leave the area, swap battle Pokemon ( ), increase their Levels and/or purchase a few items. However, because I save the game almost compulsively, I was stuck as-is.

If you set a ton of arbitrary rules for yourself and run into problems, that's on you.

Are you seriously complaining that you didn't have a textbox saying you'd get jumped *in the climax of the story!?*

That's essentially complaining you couldn't fast travel in the middle of a boss fight.

 

[girazard]

One of my little things that annoyed me in White2 was that I could just leave in the middle of the climax. It sorta ruined my immersion that Ghetsis, who was portrayed as this ruthless, sadistic being would threaten me with the regional nuke in Kyurem-W…but would then just let me…leave. And the world outside of the Giant Chasm just went on as is as if it had no consequence. (Side note that is a GREAT aspect of the climax of the Hoenn games, that you can see the effect of Groudon/Kyogre in the outer world).

(it’s almost like gamers have different experiences and priorities as to what they enjoy)

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Earlier this week, a few of us were lamenting how the villains are consistently shackled by in-game rules and conventions and are never serious threats as a result of that.

On this page, you've got someone chaffed that their fast-travel save-scumming get-out-of-jail-free options are temporarily restricted during the literal end of the world story climax.

There aren't right and wrong answers when it comes to taste, of course, but I do not consider it a bad thing that an interactive medium chooses to levy some consequence onto the player for their choices or ability, particularly at the single moment of the narrative when stakes are at the absolute highest they could ever possibly be.

 

[Noah3475]

It does not actually matter whether my loss is "file-recorded", but continuous victories is one of several arbitrary gameplay restrictions I place on myself, whether for game balance or personal amusement.

If you set a ton of arbitrary rules for yourself and run into problems, that's on you.

By saying that, I might have suggested that I play the games similarly to a nuzlocke. I meant to imply rules that I am confident >95% of Pokémon players follow, such as not importing multiple Legendary Pokémon as soon as possible to sweep the game, always using the Starter Pokémon I choose, or using a party of six Pokémon. Importing a Mewtwo and Ho-oh and sweeping (in between disobedience) would be a perfectly legitimate way to play a Pokémon game, but it would drastically decrease the satisfaction of playing. In short, none of the restrictions I place on myself directly compromised my ability to meet the challenges presented by the Spear Pillar, and any such restrictions are ultimately besides my point.

Are you seriously complaining that you didn't have a textbox saying you'd get jumped *in the climax of the story!?*

Not exactly, although I would have appreciated the game somehow telling me that Team Galactic and Prof. Rowan were about to kidnap me.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

In short, none of the restrictions I place on myself directly compromised my ability to meet the challenges presented by the Spear Pillar,

Indeed. It was the failure to pay attention to Cyrus outleveling you by like, 4 levels one boss battle before that did you in.

This should fix it tho.

 

[Hugin]

One of the things about Pokemon that's odd is that losing isn't either free or a game over. In some RPGs, if you lose, you just die. And the game is built with that expectation in mind, you're expected to save often in multiple slots and the game rarely if ever keeps you from leaving an area to restock(and if it does, that's well-telegraphed). By definition, a victorious run of those games is deathless(even if you restored from save a hundred times over to do so).

Other games, losing is free. You port back to the last restore point or otherwise start over, with your gear and party roughly intact. In those games, you're expected to ram your head into a wall repeatedly and losses are expected, while a deathless run is a challenge. Often these games come with limitations on where or how often you save, making savescumming not really possible.

Pokemon is in a weird spot where neither of those is true. Death carries consequences(you've used items in battle, money is taken away), and players generally expect to save-scum rather than lose a fight. But you only have one save slot and the games will trap you into fights you can't dodge at various points without warning. When that happens, of course players who then lose that fight are going to feel like they did something wrong, the game has created an expectation that you reset rather than black out. If blacking out is basically forced on you due to not preparing well and/or saving in the wrong place, yes that's going to be weird for people. And if the game doesn't broadcast "This door will lock behind you", of course players will sometimes pass through that door geared up incorrectly and then save. That's not good decision-making, but it's the decision-making Pokemon has encouraged by pushing savescumming as the way to proceed and not locking doors more often.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

It's worth noting the punishment for "blacking out" in Gens 1-3 was much more severe than in Gen 4 onwards. In the old school games before DP the punishment for blacking out was losing literally half of the money you possessed. At important points such a villain climax or just before the Elite Four+Champion gauntlet this means you lost a lot of money and had much less left to restock on resources.

In Gen 4 onwards the money loss is less severe and in many cases is likely to be only a very small portion of the money you have at your disposal. You would lose some money, but get sent back to a Pokemon Center and you'd still have a healthy amount of money at your disposal to restock on resources at the Poke Mart if you needed to do so.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Also, "get sent back to a recovery point and lose half of your money" isn't exactly an obscure way for death/failure to work in RPGs, either.

It's how Dragon Quest 1 works.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

It's funny that a DP playthrough sparked this line of discussion because one of the games' many flaws is that the AI, unlike in every other main series game, has a huge element of randomness even in boss fights. As I understand it, even the 'smartest' trainers in DP (besides the Battle Tower maybe?) only know to avoid using completely ineffective moves, choosing randomly between their remaining options. As a result, you basically always have a chance of muddling through while underlevelled or under-resourced, but tactics based on prediction (e.g. strategic switching) can easily be punished. SRing for an underdog win loses a lot of its charm when so much of the result comes down to stuff like 'will Cynthia have her Garchomp use EQ on my Empoleon or will she throw with Giga Impact?'

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

It's funny that a DP playthrough sparked this line of discussion because one of the games' many flaws is that the AI, unlike in every other main series game, has a huge element of randomness even in boss fights.

This is why AI that isn't trash is a complete game changer and essential for the games to be good.

Yes, OG DP's AI is straight up random. They move like a Route 1 youngster.