The text layout on this card
I make this point a lot whenever I criticise Kalos but Alola, imo, got the old/new balance right in that it's how you make them accessible.A bit late on this but I get the issue with newer dexes feeling a bit crowded out by the old guys even if they're showcased in-game well. That said, I genuinely think there's no solution. Even post-dexit the backlog of legacy Pokemon has just gotten so freaking huge that even if they did another Unova-size jumbo roster it'd be outnumbered by previous mons 3:1 under the current "roughly 600ish guys in the game total after DLC" status quo, and that's assuming it never sees an increase. Ironically dexit has probably made the chances of them pulling another BW1 even slimmer: God knows what the reactions would be if the new crop were your only options other than maybe a very limited postgame oldies selection.
Maybe my imagination is just too limited, but yeah idk man. Something like Alola is probably the best they can do at this point: Still a lot of old Pokemon, but the brand new critters and regional forms almost all get some kind of special showcase in-game as bosses, major trainer aces, access to exclusive forms of the regional gimmick, etc. Dev time has nothing to do with this, it's just an inevitability of the series continuing for as long as it has.
Sheer quantity is nice, but it's not everything. Alola just does much better work with its Pokemon than Kalos does. You could have a region of 700 Pokemon but you could make that manageable if you actually put some more thought into how they're all encountered than just "idk, shove them all in the grass and let the players worry about finding the one they want".Bulbapedia said:Unlike in Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum, there are no Pokémon species exclusive to the Radar. All wild Pokémon encountered will be the same as those encountered normally in the area.
bronzong should've had flash fire anyway to make its gimmick work properly* #justiceforbronzongthere's not really any incentive for Bronzong to ever choose Heatproof over Levitate,
Exactly! Why half-ass it? If you're going to make a Steel Pokemon that doesn't fear Fire-types, do it properly!bronzong should've had flash fire anyway to make its gimmick work properly* #justiceforbronzong
*before the type chart changes ruined it anyway, that is
There's a real possibility that the devs weren't thinking about having a strategic quandary when designing Bronzor and Bronzong. Since the inspiration for the line is a myth about a mirror that wouldn't melt down to be part of a bell, I could see them thinking of Heatproof as the flavour ability while Levitate is the mechanics Ability. From that perspective, Heatproof could be as bad as Illuminate as long as it got the idea across. I wonder if had Bronzong been created more recently, it would have a stronger Heatproof as its only main ability and Levitate restricted to HA.Underwhelming abilities are nothing new; for a lot of Pokemon with two it's like "here's the one you'll generally want and here's the other that's useful 1% of the time". There are very few circumstances in which Illuminate Starmie is the better choice over Natural Cure for instance.
wrt Bronzong though conceptually the dichotomy between Heatproof/Levitate feels more like the choice is one that's actually meant to give the player a strategic quandary. Remove your Ground weakness or remove your Fire weakness: which do you fear more? And that's something which might change based on your team and your overall strategy: if you're running a Rain team you'd fear Fire far less. Lanturn is the only other Pokemon I can think of offhand with the same predicament: it gets both Volt Absorb and Water Absorb and that's a genuine choice because Electric and Water are both common enough that you could make good use of both.
But it's not really a balanced choice in Bronzong's case because an immunity, let alone an immunity to an extremely common attacking type, is way more valuable than just reducing damage. Nine times out of ten Levitate is by far the superior choice. It's just disappointing they made a signature ability for it that's so bad.
That's not unique to them, though. There are plenty of abilities that have little or no utility in singles: Friend Guard, Healer, Stalwart, Receiver... and Plusle and Minun were literally designed to be used mostly in doubles. Making their abilities useful in singles would have gotten in the way of that.Plus and Minus should've been buffed to be special Moxie and Special Intimidate respectively. It is worthless in singles
The difference is you don't need ANOTHER user with the same or parallel ability to work. They're Doubles/Triple locked specifically, but not stuck being specific to another mon's specific abilityThat's not unique to them, though. There are plenty of abilities that have little or no utility in singles: Friend Guard, Healer, Stalwart, Receiver...