Unique or lategame. If something is only available post-gym 5, for many players it may as well not exist. This is less relevant with open-world games now, but for most of the series' lifespan, there were a lot of mons that just weren't practical for in-game use unless you did something like breed them and then trade to yourself.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
Here's the thing, small dexes also give regions an identity.
Case in point:
What game am I talking about?
Can you have a viable and diverse team in that game without using any of these mons? Most certainly. Hell, I'll even cut Lucario and Rotom from the draft too.
And mind you, that's not a quirky team of wack rejects, this is a fairly legit team. It took me less than 5 minutes to come up with it without even looking at the dex (I had to think a bit more about something to handle Gardenia lol)
This is the kind of stuff that makes iconic regions. Of course, certain regions kind of fail because of other design problems (Kanto railroads teams super hard if the player chooses Charmander as a starter) or just having weak regional dexes (Hi Johto!)
Ultimately, it's not about Dex size. It's about a combination of interesting mons and bosses that aren't ridiculous bottlenecks like the BW1 Triplets.
While we're on the topic of BW1, I've never jived with the Dex in terms of actually using the Pokémon.
I dunno, I just feel like I'm funneled into the same Pokémon every single time despite the selection. Partially because a good chunk of the cool endgame ones start off unevolved and weak and only evolve at stupidly high levels.
I can't look at the Unova dex without seeing all of the gen 1/2 mons that they're clearly papered over.
As if I'm ever going to call Roggenrola anything but Blue Geodude.
This. I feel like it kind of takes away from the whole point of Unova being it’s own, unliquidated thing where you could only use the newer Pokémon if half of the regional Dex feels like full clones or semi-clones of older Pokémon. I don’t like how swapping any of these Pokémon out for the Pokémon they’re based on fundamentally would not change how the game is played. At that point, why even design the new version to begin with?
Here's the thing, small dexes also give regions an identity.
Case in point:
What game am I talking about?
Can you have a viable and diverse team in that game without using any of these mons? Most certainly. Hell, I'll even cut Lucario and Rotom from the draft too.
And mind you, that's not a quirky team of wack rejects, this is a fairly legit team. It took me less than 5 minutes to come up with it without even looking at the dex (I had to think a bit more about something to handle Gardenia lol)
This is the kind of stuff that makes iconic regions. Of course, certain regions kind of fail because of other design problems (Kanto railroads teams super hard if the player chooses Charmander as a starter) or just having weak regional dexes (Hi Johto!)
Ultimately, it's not about Dex size. It's about a combination of interesting mons and bosses that aren't ridiculous bottlenecks like the BW1 Triplets.
This is a point I make a lot about Kalos that no-one ever seems to agree with. Kalos stacks various species into its routes to a point that's frankly obnoxious, and it crowds out the new Pokemon. Each route contains one or two Gen VI species, but because there's six or seven or eight older Pokemon to be found there (and often very little variety in terms of how they're placed in each area) they don't feel at all prominent in their own region.
Weirdly despite the massive diversity of choice, X&Y still tries very hard to railroad you by giving you gift Pokemon - Lapras, Lucario, a Kanto starter. Which actually does give Kalos an identity of sorts because a huge amount of teams I see from X&Y look something very much like "Kalos starter, Kanto starter, Lucario, Talonflame, 5th, 6th".
Personally something I've often found enjoyable is going "backwards" in terms of regional dexes - using lategame mons as early as possible. Because often lategame Pokemon are just as weak as earlygame mons there's not much lost in doing this and it makes for a refreshing experience instead of using the usual options. Obviously you'd have to trade eggs in to make that work but using, say, a team consisting of Clamperl, Chinchou, Luvdisc, and Horsea in RSE, or a team consisting of Houndour, Misdreavus, Murkrow, Gligar, and Delibird in GSC is surprisingly good fun. Or even using stuff like the Kami trio or the Creation Trio (at level 5 from the Dream Radar or at level 1 from the Sinjoh event in HGSS)
That said it's often great fun to just use non-native Pokemon altogether. I've been meaning to replay BW/B2W2 for ages and I've got a bunch of freshly-bred Pokemon it'd be fun to use in a playthrough like Goldeen.
A recent Mono Gen 6 Pokerogue Challenge reminded me how much its roster sucks:
- I was starving for mons for most of the run since there's only like 60 sth of them, and worst of all I couldn't find my boy Aegislash.
- I had an unusable Diggersby who couldn't even OHKO a Magnezone up until near the end when I switched it for a Furfrou. The only non Legendary Kalos Ground type, everyone...
- The Mega Bracelet appeared in rewards plenty of times, which I couldn't pick bc there's (almost) no Kalos Megas. Reminder that its the region that introduced them
- Really, the only reason I won that was bc I had an absurd Battle Bond Greninja, which is technically a Gen 7 addition but hey the game allowed it
- I was starving for mons for most of the run since there's only like 60 sth of them, and worst of all I couldn't find my boy Aegislash.
- I had an unusable Diggersby who couldn't even OHKO a Magnezone up until near the end when I switched it for a Furfrou. The only non Legendary Kalos Ground type, everyone...
- The Mega Bracelet appeared in rewards plenty of times, which I couldn't pick bc there's (almost) no Kalos Megas. Reminder that its the region that introduced them
- Really, the only reason I won that was bc I had an absurd Battle Bond Greninja, which is technically a Gen 7 addition but hey the game allowed it
I think it doesn't help with Kalos teambuilding that none of the new Gen 6 Pokemon have Megas, and that so many of the Mega Stones are locked to post-game only. Sure, you can trade them in from another game, but the average player is not going to have those resources (much less think to do that) for their first playthrough. When the game is actively prompting you to use old Pokemon to engage with this new mechanic, and two fan-favorites with Megas just fall into your lap (three, if you got the Torchic back when the games were new!), why would you go with other options? The other Megas that you can actually use before post-game are:
- Gengar (another popular Gen 1 Pokemon)
- Aerodactyl (have fun grinding Rock Smash in Glittering Cave!)
- Ampharos (no half-hearted snarky commentary, good pick imo)
- Abomasnow (I've always loved this choice, it ties in with the Team Flare fights in the Frozen Cavern well and gives you a fun in-game option for an Ice type, which the game rarely encourages you to do)
There's definitely an interesting part to teambuilding that is worth bringing up. Namely, I feel a lot of teams in a given region are driven not just by the availability of Pokemon, especially new vs old, but also what's particularly good. Something that's very useful, is fun to use, and tends to look cool or cute design wise in a memorable way. And is readily available in some way.
Sinnoh gets memed a lot for having a very specific team composition but there's a good reason the same set of its new mons are so commonly used. Luxray and Staraptor are presented extremely early on as the relatively cute Shinx and Starly, making them appealing off the bat when you're just starting out and catching new Pokemon, and they evolve twice over the game into middle forms and then really cool and badass final forms, with strong overall stats and good toolkits to make them valuable team members. They are good early-game Pokemon in just about every front, which is very rare when most early game Pokemon are a combination of mediocre and bland looking and will inevitably fall off. When you consider that is the norm, having something immediately appealing that also lives up to that appeal off the bat makes Starly and Shinx quite standout. Bibarel also gets on so many teams because it has a funny design but most of all even if people don't use it in combat, it learns so many HMs in an HM heavy game and is available everywhere in the region, so it's easy to pick up and throw HMs on it for field use, also making it useful as a field member.
And then you get Budew, Buizel, and Ponyta fairly early into the game, and they are three elemental users who are immediately valuable for covering your starter in type matchups, with Budew also going through a great three-stage progression into Roselia and then Roserade. Other cool Pokemon are presented to you in appealing ways as well. Riolu is presented as an egg that you get as a gift in the story and becomes Lucario who is one of the most marketed and cool Pokemon. Garchomp is found as a Gible in a side dungeon and is not only really awesome looking and powerful, but is one of the few pseudo-legendaries who is genuinely usable in an in-game playthrough thanks to a good natural movepool and reasonable evolution levels. Weavile and Gliscor (in Platinum for the latter) are cool new evolutions who have great designs and their pre-evolutions are found in distinct places, and despite Weavile, Garchomp, and Lucario being available fairly late, make it to their final forms at a reasonable time to justify their use anyhow.
Meanwhile addressing Kalos since that was brought up. It seems to be on the other end of the spectrum. Talonflame is popular because it's also a really good and cool looking early route bird like Staraptor is, but then you see almost everyone use the Kanto starter and Lucario, because the game railroads you into them by giving them to you as gifts. They are a case of gift Pokemon that are given to you, but you're inclined to keep them because they're just so good. The Kanto starters and Lucario are all popular and have great designs, and giving them Megas to highlight the new feature with new designs for all four of them no less gives them novelty value despite being old gen Pokemon, and using their Megas feels good, especially since the former are basically your second starter and now you get to Mega Evolve them, while Lucario is the ultimate reward to use Mega Evolution, which X and Y slowly builds up.
And then the last two slots are usually some sort of fill-ins. Lapras is sometimes used, though not always, but it's useful for Surf off the bat if you need it and has a special overworld sprite to top it off. But usually I see at least two of the following: Sylveon, Aegislash, Goodra, Heliolisk, or Noivern. Kalos does have a massive dex with a small new dex with most of the new mons scattered across one route apiece. That said, each of the new Pokemon only being available on one or two routes does work to their benefit in some ways: while it has a small new roster, many of the new Pokemon are good, with standout designs and great battle capabilities, like Sylveon being the new Eeveelution and the poster child of the Fairy-type, Aegislash being a unique gimmick Pokemon with a great type and skillset, Goodra being a usable pseudo-legendary, and then some other particulary solid picks.
What I do think is the benefit of the new Kalos mons often being only in one route and often intermingled with many other old gen Pokemon in a large regional dex is that it helps the new Gen 6 Pokemon stand out more, and it feels good when you do find them and use them, which I think has allowed some of the really like Goodra and Aegislash to be desirable and standout picks.
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That said looking at BW1 in particular, it ultimately has a few shortcomings in how its new roster is designed, especially using the above notable aspects of Kalos and Sinnoh as comparison. The first two routes before the first Gym have a dismal selection. It's just Patrat, Lillipup, and Purrloin. Patrat is mediocre, Lillipup is fine but nothing worth noting, and Purrloin stinks. Watchog and Liepard aren't exactly great either. Lillipup is the only one of the three who has any sort of longevity. Contrast that with DP's immediate giving of Starly and Shinx, and even mingling in a few other good early mons before the first Gym like Budew, Geodude, Psyduck, and whatnot as other potentially good options. Then there's your first "gift" Pokemon...in the elemental monkey. The monkeys are not horrible in battle per se, but they're pretty weak, don't have appealing designs, and even when they evolve their evolved forms are widely considered ugly and battle wise they're quite bland and average at best and later on it shows. Whereas XY gives you the Kanto starters and Lucario who are really good and showcase a new and cool mechanic, BW gives you a boring monkey who only serves to help against the first Gym in a tutorial on type matchups and is a very bland Pokemon otherwise in just about every aspect.
Most of BW1's early roster consists of Pokemon who are functionally identical to something from an earlier generation, and while Gen 5 does have some really cool and fun Pokemon, many of them are either found very late and evolve way too late to be of use for a playthrough or are fortunate to be in the mid-game. From my experience, there are precisely two points in the game where fun team picks are presented to you: the desert around Nimbasa, and Chargestone Cave. The desert has some really good ones, like Sandile, Darumaka, Scraggy, and the two fossils, and the area around Chargestone has some great ones in Joltik, Ferroseed, Tynamo, and to an extent Klink. Litwick and Axew can be found around the same point in the game through other means. But those are generally the main points where something interesting and good is available.
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I do want to say though, I think SM was somewhat worse with mingling its new Pokemon into the region than XY. Mainly because so many of them are slow or boring, and are mingled in with what is often time a repetitive combination of Pelipper and Yungoos/Alolan Raticate. Everywhere you go, it's Yungoos, Alolan Raticate, and Pelipper. All. The. Damn. Time. And then you find very few good Pokemon here and there, but I feel a lot of them aren't too standout or fun.
Just a lot of rambly thoughts on some topics here.
Sinnoh gets memed a lot for having a very specific team composition but there's a good reason the same set of its new mons are so commonly used. Luxray and Staraptor are presented extremely early on as the relatively cute Shinx and Starly, making them appealing off the bat when you're just starting out and catching new Pokemon, and they evolve twice over the game into middle forms and then really cool and badass final forms, with strong overall stats and good toolkits to make them valuable team members. They are good early-game Pokemon in just about every front, which is very rare when most early game Pokemon are a combination of mediocre and bland looking and will inevitably fall off. When you consider that is the norm, having something immediately appealing that also lives up to that appeal off the bat makes Starly and Shinx quite standout. Bibarel also gets on so many teams because it has a funny design but most of all even if people don't use it in combat, it learns so many HMs in an HM heavy game and is available everywhere in the region, so it's easy to pick up and throw HMs on it for field use, also making it useful as a field member.
And then you get Budew, Buizel, and Ponyta fairly early into the game, and they are three elemental users who are immediately valuable for covering your starter in type matchups, with Budew also going through a great three-stage progression into Roselia and then Roserade. Other cool Pokemon are presented to you in appealing ways as well. Riolu is presented as an egg that you get as a gift in the story and becomes Lucario who is one of the most marketed and cool Pokemon. Garchomp is found as a Gible in a side dungeon and is not only really awesome looking and powerful, but is one of the few pseudo-legendaries who is genuinely usable in an in-game playthrough thanks to a good natural movepool and reasonable evolution levels. Weavile and Gliscor (in Platinum for the latter) are cool new evolutions who have great designs and their pre-evolutions are found in distinct places, and despite Weavile, Garchomp, and Lucario being available fairly late, make it to their final forms at a reasonable time to justify their use anyhow.
Meanwhile addressing Kalos since that was brought up. It seems to be on the other end of the spectrum. Talonflame is popular because it's also a really good and cool looking early route bird like Staraptor is, but then you see almost everyone use the Kanto starter and Lucario, because the game railroads you into them by giving them to you as gifts. They are a case of gift Pokemon that are given to you, but you're inclined to keep them because they're just so good. The Kanto starters and Lucario are all popular and have great designs, and giving them Megas to highlight the new feature with new designs for all four of them no less gives them novelty value despite being old gen Pokemon, and using their Megas feels good, especially since the former are basically your second starter and now you get to Mega Evolve them, while Lucario is the ultimate reward to use Mega Evolution, which X and Y slowly builds up.
And then the last two slots are usually some sort of fill-ins. Lapras is sometimes used, though not always, but it's useful for Surf off the bat if you need it and has a special overworld sprite to top it off. But usually I see at least two of the following: Sylveon, Aegislash, Goodra, Heliolisk, or Noivern. Kalos does have a massive dex with a small new dex with most of the new mons scattered across one route apiece. That said, each of the new Pokemon only being available on one or two routes does work to their benefit in some ways: while it has a small new roster, many of the new Pokemon are good, with standout designs and great battle capabilities, like Sylveon being the new Eeveelution and the poster child of the Fairy-type, Aegislash being a unique gimmick Pokemon with a great type and skillset, Goodra being a usable pseudo-legendary, and then some other particulary solid picks.
What I do think is the benefit of the new Kalos mons often being only in one route and often intermingled with many other old gen Pokemon in a large regional dex is that it helps the new Gen 6 Pokemon stand out more, and it feels good when you do find them and use them, which I think has allowed some of the really like Goodra and Aegislash to be desirable and standout picks.
---
That said looking at BW1 in particular, it ultimately has a few shortcomings in how its new roster is designed, especially using the above notable aspects of Kalos and Sinnoh as comparison. The first two routes before the first Gym have a dismal selection. It's just Patrat, Lillipup, and Purrloin. Patrat is mediocre, Lillipup is fine but nothing worth noting, and Purrloin stinks. Watchog and Liepard aren't exactly great either. Lillipup is the only one of the three who has any sort of longevity. Contrast that with DP's immediate giving of Starly and Shinx, and even mingling in a few other good early mons before the first Gym like Budew, Geodude, Psyduck, and whatnot as other potentially good options. Then there's your first "gift" Pokemon...in the elemental monkey. The monkeys are not horrible in battle per se, but they're pretty weak, don't have appealing designs, and even when they evolve their evolved forms are widely considered ugly and battle wise they're quite bland and average at best and later on it shows. Whereas XY gives you the Kanto starters and Lucario who are really good and showcase a new and cool mechanic, BW gives you a boring monkey who only serves to help against the first Gym in a tutorial on type matchups and is a very bland Pokemon otherwise in just about every aspect.
Most of BW1's early roster consists of Pokemon who are functionally identical to something from an earlier generation, and while Gen 5 does have some really cool and fun Pokemon, many of them are either found very late and evolve way too late to be of use for a playthrough or are fortunate to be in the mid-game. From my experience, there are precisely two points in the game where fun team picks are presented to you: the desert around Nimbasa, and Chargestone Cave. The desert has some really good ones, like Sandile, Darumaka, Scraggy, and the two fossils, and the area around Chargestone has some great ones in Joltik, Ferroseed, Tynamo, and to an extent Klink. Litwick and Axew can be found around the same point in the game through other means. But those are generally the main points where something interesting and good is available.
---
I do want to say though, I think SM was somewhat worse with mingling its new Pokemon into the region than XY. Mainly because so many of them are slow or boring, and are mingled in with what is often time a repetitive combination of Pelipper and Yungoos/Alolan Raticate. Everywhere you go, it's Yungoos, Alolan Raticate, and Pelipper. All. The. Damn. Time. And then you find very few good Pokemon here and there, but I feel a lot of them aren't too standout or fun.
Just a lot of rambly thoughts on some topics here.
That team shows up a lot for first playthroughs, sure. But second? Sixth? There's no region with as many mons available early on or as much type diversity as Kalos. Yes, first playthroughs look similar, but there's no reason to keep your team similar in repeat playthroughs unless you enjoy that. A monotype F W or G team can have 6 slots filled before Zubat Roost/Connecting Cave without repeats(bug and flying do it before Lumiose). And sure, those are common types. But a monodragon is feasible, for maybe the only time in series history. Axew/Bagon/Tyrunt/Trapinch/Goomy/CharmanderX or Skrelp. You hit 3-4 of those members before the second gym and fill it out right after gym 4. Is there any other game with that level of options available early? If you're running a Nuzlocke, you'll walk out of each route with something you haven't seen before, even if it's not a mon you'd normally pick.
Yes, you have to search for mons harder in XY. And it's a conscious decision not to just go Greninja/Charizard/Lucario and steamroll everything. But if you want to challenge yourself and play the game in a new way, XY makes that a lot easier than the rest of the series, even if the actual difficulty isn't there.
For me the difficulty issue in XY has ripple effects that taint the rest of the game experience. Kalos' long, varied routes should be a huge plus, but they become a slog when you aren't strategising and building anticipation for the next boss battle. When a Gym Leader poses no challenge, they become unappealing and forgettable, which ends up making the city they appear in forgettable too. Viola and Grant were a good start, but the game up to Cyllage City feels kinda like an extended prologue to me, which is fine on a first playthrough but a little annoying on subsequent runs, so at every stage of the game I'm mildly bothered by something. Even little gripes like the awkward Rhyhorn-riding section are made worse when the payoff is just a bunch of corridors leading to three easy Grunt battles.
I really love monotype playthroughs, but a team is only ever as interesting as the challenges you overcome with it. I absolutely agree that XY lets you assemble any number of sick rosters, but the shine comes off pretty quickly when you realise that there's nothing fun or interesting to do with them. In the newer games more generally, I think the benefits of a big regional Dex are also undermined a little by the trend towards more expansive and generic move distribution, since a Pokemon's movepool used to be one of the strongest tools for making it feel unique to raise.
I really love monotype playthroughs, but a team is only ever as interesting as the challenges you overcome with it. I absolutely agree that XY lets you assemble any number of sick rosters, but the shine comes off pretty quickly when you realise that there's nothing fun or interesting to do with them. In the newer games more generally, I think the benefits of a big regional Dex are also undermined a little by the trend towards more expansive and generic move distribution, since a Pokemon's movepool used to be one of the strongest tools for making it feel unique to raise.
I still remember having to use TWave + Electro Ball just to have stronger STAB than Thundershock before Clemont.
XY Ampharos takes forever to get going and it genuinely feels bad to use Thundershock on a mon that's over Lv. 30.
Including exploration.
Later games almost punish you from going around capturing mons because they give exp on capture now. Which should be good, but not when there are so many level curve issues.
This is more obvious in SV. Exploring South Province Area 1 is fun, you get a LOT of mons, TMs, items... Good stuff right?
Nemona caps out at Lv. 9 on her second battle outside of Mesagoza's gates.
There are 12 trainers available in that area alone, let alone the experience you'll get just by basic teambuilding. And you get TMs too.
A lot of things are optional in Paldea, but going out of my way to NOT explore so I don't steamroll the game even harder is just ridiculous.
Yeah, don't try to level match Nemona, she's usually weaker than some of the wild Pokémon in areas where you fight her. The level curve is mostly fine until the last couple gyms if you're only trying to match the bosses.
Nemona's whole shtick is that she's sandbagging on purpose and patronizing you like you're some dumb baby anyway, so steamrolling her seems appropriate regardless.
And that's why it's poor design. The level curve is just... bad. Plain and simple.
The obvious issue Pokémon has been running into with open-ended gameplay is that they're trying too hard to accommodate players that want to rush past the game going from point A to point B.
To be quite frank, fuck em.
It doesn't make sense to invest copious amounts of money and work into making a large expansive world in a game whose theme is all about exploring and then designing the level curve around people who are just going to ignore all that and go to the next checkpoint like they're playing a Call of Duty story mission.
Well, I suppose this is the unpopular opinions thread so:
Is the world actually built for exploration, though? Are there significant reasons to go off the straightforward path beyond the bare minimum to fill out a team? Traversal isn't engaging on its own without challenges and growth, and this is no metroidvania. Seems to me like the issue is putting all those resources into an ultimately unimportant section in the first place.
I mean level curve aside you can technically do everything in whatever order you want, barring the Titan Dondozo/Tatsugiri. If they'd actually gone all the way with it and given the Gym Leaders and Star Bosses multiple different teams based on the order you fought them, the level of exploration would make complete sense.
In terms of quality, many things can be argued about regarding both SwSh and SV.
In terms of intent, it's very clear they wanted the "open-world features" to be a defining part of both regions. From the region design to gameplay mechanics to the marketing of both games, they made sure to really drive this point across.
Coming back here to share an eighth opinion I just remembered: Very few Shiny Pokemon actually look better than the original colors. There are exceptions, mostly the black and red ones (and I like the orange and gold ones too) but for the most part I could take it or leave it with a lot of them, and in many cases I prefer the normal palette. It's a shame because I love Shinies conceptually and I consider myself an experienced Shiny hunter, but some of them just aren't worth the effort.
Literally just turn all Exp. Groups into Med. Slow, and add back the old Exp. Share along with the Exp. All as a held item that also doubles as a mini-Lucky Egg (x1.2 exp) so it's always useful but never broken.
Experience and stats feel like two numerical systems within Pokemon that are flawed due to their overall saturated execution.
Experience doesn't need separate groups to denote a Pokemon's "legendaryness" or lack there of. This can, and already is, handled through other ways like late evolution levels or scarce availability. Putting a legendary or pseudo-legendary Pokemon into a Slow experience group just adds insult to injury. It's not like people choose to not use these Pokemon due to their experience group. It's usually due to other factors like late availability/evolution levels or wanting to fulfill the need to challenge themselves. And the other experience groups make even less sense.
Stats-wise, again, variation in stat spread can already be handled through EV allocation; this adds a level of uniqueness to a Pokemon on top of their inherent base stat values. Adding IVs on top of that again just adds insult to injury. Why institute this arbitrary mechanism to differentiate the stats of a Pokemon, when the player themself can control this through their own custom approach towards EV allocation in the course of a play through?
Just two examples of not particularly logical or streamlined numerical systems that I wish were never in the games to begin with.
Experience doesn't need separate groups to denote a Pokemon's "legendaryness" or lack there of. This can, and already is, handled through other ways like late evolution levels or scarce availability. Putting a legendary or pseudo-legendary Pokemon into a Slow experience group just adds insult to injury. It's not like people choose to not use these Pokemon due to their experience group. It's usually due to other factors like late availability/evolution levels or wanting to fulfill the need to challenge themselves. And the other experience groups make even less sense.
Stats-wise, again, variation in stat spread can already be handled through EV allocation; this adds a level of uniqueness to a Pokemon on top of their inherent base stat values. Adding IVs on top of that again just adds insult to injury. Why institute this arbitrary mechanism to differentiate the stats of a Pokemon, when the player themself can control this through their own custom approach towards EV allocation in the course of a play through?
Just two examples of not particularly logical or streamlined numerical systems that I wish were never in the games to begin with.
I think the different experience growth rates are more than justified. It makes a certain amount of sense for Pokemon with higher stats to require more experience to level-up. Greater effort, greater reward.
I do find the existence of the Erratic and Fluctuating groups specifically to be kind of amusing, though. Their formulas are pretty out of the norm and obtuse compared to the other groups, and they're both rarely applied to any species introduced after gen III. (Literally every single species in the Fluctuating group except the Drifloon line is a gen III Pokemon.) A very obvious case of "we'd cut this if we could but we're keeping it around for legacy/compatibility reasons."
I do find the existence of the Erratic and Fluctuating groups specifically to be kind of amusing, though. Their formulas are pretty out of the norm and obtuse compared to the other groups, and they're both rarely applied to any species introduced after gen III. (Literally every single species in the Fluctuating group except the Drifloon line is a gen III Pokemon.) A very obvious case of "we'd cut this if we could but we're keeping it around for legacy/compatibility reasons."
Zoey vs Nando in the grand festival is the peak of the pokemon anime, or at least contest battling in DP
Quite a lot of the focus in the DP anime was Dawn trying to create combination moves, and while that's interesting some of the time (and is even used in this specific battle with Zoey combining Thunder Wave and Energy Ball), it does kinda lose something in the way of trying to make truly appealing looking fights. Dawn's Flame Ice and Ice Chandelier are cool and all, but sometimes I just like to go back to basics, which this fight does quite well
I haven't watched ADV in quite some time so i'm not gonna say definitively that it's the best contest battle overall, but it's among my favorite parts of the DP anime from having watched it over the past couple weeks.
Quite a lot of the focus in the DP anime was Dawn trying to create combination moves, and while that's interesting some of the time (and is even used in this specific battle with Zoey combining Thunder Wave and Energy Ball), it does kinda lose something in the way of trying to make truly appealing looking fights. Dawn's Flame Ice and Ice Chandelier are cool and all, but sometimes I just like to go back to basics, which this fight does quite well
I haven't watched ADV in quite some time so i'm not gonna say definitively that it's the best contest battle overall, but it's among my favorite parts of the DP anime from having watched it over the past couple weeks.