Little things you like about Pokémon

Playing through Diamond rn and trying to catch Unown for the Maniac Tunnel expansion, and I noticed one thing.

Each of the main big rooms in Solaceon Ruins has only one Unown letter that spawns. The second big room has the F Unown. The third one has the R Unown. The fourth one has the I Unown. The fifth one has the E Unown. The sixth one has the N Unown. And the seventh (and final) one has the D Unown.

Put them together, and what do you get?

"FRIEND"

That's a cool detail. Especially in tandem with the final big room's inscription is "Friendship. All lives touch other lives to create something anew and alive." The fact that each big room has the Unown that spell the word "Friend" is super neat.
 
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Aside from being incredible artwork, I like that this seems to specifically depict BDSP Lucas, judging by the proportions. It really ups the contrast against the rest of the artwork.
 
igiveuponaname said:
little bit of like little bit of annoyed but ill just leave it all in this thread

the slugma egg you get from primo in hgss is really nice. getting access to a pokemon you would otherwise have to wait until kanto to catch regularly before you even face the first gym is really cool and its something i always pick up and use whenever i play through those games. although i have zero clue how you're actually supposed to figure out the codes to get the eggs without using an external website.

the other two eggs on the other hand are a bit of a let down. mareep and wooper are both pokemon you can find in the wild grass just south of violet city which makes their eggs rather pointless when they could have been used to give players access to other late game pokemon like with the slugma egg.
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I agree, but don't like slugma at all lol... but if you don't use Typlosion I'm sure it's a good fire type. A friend told me about people doing "giftlockes" in HGSS so maybe that's why, giving you fun gift pokemon to use.

DrPumpkinz said:
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Morty and Pryce in Gen 2 were literally just two dudes wearing t-shirts.
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I love how Morty comes in to the fight talking about dreams of his own. They do a great job characterizing the gym leaders in Johto. I love that region soooo much. there's something so raw about it. My favorite aesthetic and my favorite Pokemon..

My favorite scene in that one Pokemon Adventures book I've read is Sneasel stealing a scroll, I'll post it later when I'm on my phone.

I need to finish Moon eventually, I really like Lusamine's character and hope she continues to play a role in the story. As someone hoping to be a parent some day, it feels nice to have my views on children represented.
 
Meanwhile Calem has had zero cards (Serena has 1 card with 3 variants, which is still less than Xerosic's 3 cards 2 of which have variants).

I think Xerosic's helped by circumstances. For whatever reason, they decided that the character gallery would have a Malamar card and he's definitely the most relevant character for Malamar.
Meanwhile Machinations was in a set whose trainers were themed around sneaks and geniuses to match the Pecharunt + Loyal 3: he was joined by a new Colress card and "Cassiopeia". Also Janine, who probably isn't a genius but is a sneak and fits the Japanese poison motif of Shrouded Fable.

The TCG can definitely be a little silly in who it does & doesn't hit, but it's fun when they're willing to grab folks seemingly at random to fit a theme.
 
A nice little detail of the DP Anime's trilogy of Movies: There is an overarching theme within all three movie- that is how dangerous misunderstandings can be and why we all have to work together to make peace.

  • The Alamos Town people (especially Baron Alberto) despise Darkrai for its nightmares and the strange time space distortions while in reality Darkrai was trying to protect the town from Dialga and Palkia and the nighmares were in self-defense.
  • Speaking of Dialga and Palkia they fought each other due to a misunderstanding of the other invading its territory, while reality that was caused by Arceus preparing to wake up.
  • Speaking of which, Giratina was dragged into that fight due to the former two's battle affecting the Reverse World.
  • Shaymin thought Giratina as a monster who wanted to eat it, but in reality Giratina only wanted Shaymin to use Seed Flare to come into the real world and did its best to protect Ash and his friends.
  • Most notably, Arceus sought to destroy humanity due to a betrayal from Damos, who was brainwashed and betrayed by his subordinate Bronzong's Hypnosis.
There are probably more examples, but its nice theme that not super-hard to notice from Pokemon' best TV series.
 
Owner's Pokemon in the TCG generally stick to the Pokemon the trainer actually owns. The Gym Leader sets and VS set obviously had to expand past that since they wanted to fill the entire set with Owner Pokemon and were working with such limited rosters, but they still used it as a base line; meanwhile SP Pokemon and the new round of Owner's Pokemon are almost exclusively just the relevant ones...except for Ethan!

Ethan like most player characters has no set Pokemon beyond "one of the starters" but in this round he has Typhlosion, Magcargo, Pichu and Ho-oh! That's so fun, just pulling on cards to make things work; since Ho-Oh is positioned as his centerpiece his deck trends towards fire types and a free-energy support Pokemon currently.

It's also cool that Ethan, of all characters, gets to headline the set. He's co-starring with Cynthia(alsoMisty), but Ho-oh is the one being pushed and that means he gets centerstage. He went from literally not having a single card (even as the "Gold" era)
 
R_N said:
Owner's Pokemon in the TCG generally stick to the Pokemon the trainer actually owns. The Gym Leader sets and VS set obviously had to expand past that since they wanted to fill the entire set with Owner Pokemon and were working with such limited rosters, but they still used it as a base line; meanwhile SP Pokemon and the new round of Owner's Pokemon are almost exclusively just the relevant ones...except for Ethan!

Ethan like most player characters has no set Pokemon beyond "one of the starters" but in this round he has Typhlosion, Magcargo, Pichu and Ho-oh! That's so fun, just pulling on cards to make things work; since Ho-Oh is positioned as his centerpiece his deck trends towards fire types and a free-energy support Pokemon currently.

It's also cool that Ethan, of all characters, gets to headline the set. He's co-starring with Cynthia(alsoMisty), but Ho-oh is the one being pushed and that means he gets centerstage. He went from literally not having a single card (even as the "Gold" era)
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Incidentally, I want to make an observation about the Pichu card
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Its left ear is cut off at the top... I may be overanalyzing but are they trying to keep it intentionally vague whether this is Spiky-Eared Pichu or not?
 
Yung Dramps said:
Incidentally, I want to make an observation about the Pichu card
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Its left ear is cut off at the top... I may be overanalyzing but are they trying to keep it intentionally vague whether this is Spiky-Eared Pichu or not?
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I see no reason they'd keep it vague, if they wanted it to be Spiky-Eared Pichu they would just...show the ear and label it as "Spiky-Eared" Pichu. Intentionally lean into it as a nostalgic HGSS reference, and probably let them trot Shoko-tan out or point at smash bros, and so on.
 
Yung Dramps said:

Coumarine City is such an underrated spot, the vibes are immaculate. This theme playing while you look over the port half from the mountaintop... so serene. I even like Ramos he's just a chill funny old dude, unfortunately this fanbase never appreciates funny old men
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I absolutely love Hitomi Sato's work on this track. It has so many of the hallmarks that make her work so comforting and distinct - back-and-forth between different instruments all playing their own little jazzy riffs, a relaxed bassline grounding the whole thing, and plenty of piano, an instrument that has always felt like home in Pokemon (with one major exception) but especially in her hands.

Naturally I'm also a big fan of its spiritual successor (ancestor?) in Cobalt Coastlands 2, which is essentially the surfing theme of the game:
 
So I was reading about Tandemaus and Maushold and-

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"Mouse math" is just such a funny concept to base a Pokemon move on I can't help but smirk at it

It's amazing how we're at literally 1,000 Pokemon now and we're still getting creative and silly ideas for Pokemon and moves


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Maushold just nails the "simple but cute" charm, it feels like a modern Gen 1 design in the best of ways even if it's using the Dugtrio / Magneton design mentality (which is fine to me). Tandemaus evolving offscreen if not your lead is also such a sneaky joke that references it being an explosive breeder

Bonus points for the 1/100 chance for a Family of Three Maushold

Just great theming all around really.
 
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DrumstickGaming said:
So I was reading about Tandemaus and Maushold and-

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"Mouse math" is just such a funny concept to base a Pokemon move on I can't help but smirk at it

It's amazing how we're at literally 1,000 Pokemon now and we're still getting creative and silly ideas for Pokemon and moves


View attachment 715114
Maushold just nails the "simple but cute" charm, it feels like a modern Gen 1 design in the best of ways even if it's using the Dugtrio / Magneton design mentality (which is fine to me). Tandemaus evolving offscreen if not your lead is also such a sneaky joke that references it being an explosive breeder

Bonus points for the 1/100 chance for a Family of Three Maushold

Just great theming all around really.
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I didn’t know about the evolving off-screen if not your lead, that’s actually really funny.

It still just doesn’t make me like the designs more though. I’m not close to a design boomer — I think 7 and particularly 8 are two of the strongest generations in terms of new Pokémon designs, and gen 9 has loads of really strong designs in its own right. But the Tandemaus family is easily one of my least favourite designs ever.

Great concept, a lot of cute stuff going on around the designs, I like the Family of Three thing a lot too. It’s just a shame they look how they do. It goes beyond the often misused “this is just a x not a Pokémon” criticism since “just x” mons have been in the series from the start and we all love Furret. They’re the mouse equivalent of modern logo design, where everything gets corporatised and stripped of as much detail as possible. They don’t have mouths lmao, a distinctive feature of mice is their teeth.

They just feel like a first draft design. Like they had this concept sitting in their drawer for months and then someone found it the day of the deadline to submit new mon designs and did a quick sketch. What makes even the simpler mons designs good from a visual standpoint is that they infuse them with a lot of small details and references, and this family doesn’t have any of that. Nothing you mentioned in this post is actually reflected in their visual design.
 
For what it's worth they do have mouths. They're going for the cutsey, cartoony sanrio-esque thing of you "simplified head shape so you only see them when they open"

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It also adds a joke to the design: These tiny cute mice have extremely large mouths with a goofy tooth so they look goofy-intimidating

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Like I don't think this is going to make you love them but: do have mouth! Personally I think simplicity by design really works for them, especially in their animations. Their attack for physicals has them make a mice ladder and smack you with themselves, that's fun.
 
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