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Pokémon Presents - Pokémon Day 2025 - Pokemon ZA Info & Pokemon Champions Announced
- Thread starter DHR-107
- Start date
People take the ‘canon’ of Pokemon existing when and where wildly too seriously.
The only ‘canon’ that’s ‘real’ is the latest game. Pokemon has literally introduced the idea of the games taking place in different alternate universes to explain away the discrepancies.
It doesn’t matter. They’ll put whatever they want in whatever game they want. They’ll introduce new evolutions without any real reason. They’ll change evolution methods.
It’s not supposed to be a narrative that you try to enforce continuity to.
The only ‘canon’ that’s ‘real’ is the latest game. Pokemon has literally introduced the idea of the games taking place in different alternate universes to explain away the discrepancies.
It doesn’t matter. They’ll put whatever they want in whatever game they want. They’ll introduce new evolutions without any real reason. They’ll change evolution methods.
It’s not supposed to be a narrative that you try to enforce continuity to.
I've always just assumed there's various factors in play that means most of the Hisui mons weren't around anymore.
Kleavor and Ursaluna evolve using specific items related to minerals, could environmental damage not have made those items even rarer to find? Maybe they do exist in modern times they're just incredibly rare due to lack of richness in the soil? Rufflet, Stantler and Basculin are no longer required to evolve further because of certain ecosystem changes.
Maybe Stantler doesn't need to traverse such rough terrain anymore? Basculin (Hisui) migrated to Unova and became more aggressive, thus less dying and no more evolving into Basculegion.
Pretty much anything can be answered with environmental changes- I don't see why hairs have to be split over things being slightly in the future and wondering if Kalosian forms exist.
Maybe the environment in Kalos changed due to the concentration of life/death energy that comes from the conclusion of the XY story? Thus answering the question of forms. Or maybe evolutions have been dormant inside Pokemon until a specific reason?
Kleavor and Ursaluna evolve using specific items related to minerals, could environmental damage not have made those items even rarer to find? Maybe they do exist in modern times they're just incredibly rare due to lack of richness in the soil? Rufflet, Stantler and Basculin are no longer required to evolve further because of certain ecosystem changes.
Maybe Stantler doesn't need to traverse such rough terrain anymore? Basculin (Hisui) migrated to Unova and became more aggressive, thus less dying and no more evolving into Basculegion.
Pretty much anything can be answered with environmental changes- I don't see why hairs have to be split over things being slightly in the future and wondering if Kalosian forms exist.
Maybe the environment in Kalos changed due to the concentration of life/death energy that comes from the conclusion of the XY story? Thus answering the question of forms. Or maybe evolutions have been dormant inside Pokemon until a specific reason?
I mean ultimately Pokémon are fictional magical creatures and don’t have to act in accordance with any sort of logic that compares directly to wildlife in the real world
But that was basically ant4456’s point that started all of this: Ash-Greninja could be retconned into a Mega with as little justification as any other handwave in the series
But that was basically ant4456’s point that started all of this: Ash-Greninja could be retconned into a Mega with as little justification as any other handwave in the series
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That was literally the entire point. I didn't get mad that TPC retconned shit. I pointed out that they retcon shit and mentioned Hisui as an example, and then I had to argue that Hisui was a retcon.
If you think this is pointless, meaningless, they'll do whatever the fuck they want - you agree with my original point.
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People saying there can’t be regional forms in ZA because of plot or something have the same energy as people who claim you can’t make a good Superman game because he’s too overpowered.
Sometimes people forget that fiction is fictional and think people can’t invent some new character mysteriously as strong as Superman or new forms for Pokemon mysteriously appearing in an older Pokemon region.
Yeah, you're right, it's not like this lady uses the Pokemon she dresses up as for Battles or other competitions.
Also it's not like GF ever subverts what kind of Pokemon a trainer would have as their ace.
Off topic, but for Superman they don't even need to do that, the problem with a Superman game is that no one knows (or wants to bother remembering/checking) how big and diverse his Rogue Gallery is like they do for Batman or Spider-Man. Not sure if that can be related back to Pokemon.
ENOUGH!
You're now talking in circles. GF is gonna do what GF is gonna do. If they want to make Kalosian Regionals they will. If they want to retcon Ash-Greninja to be its normal Mega they will. If they want to make Mega Greninja something different they will.
All we can do now is just wait and see what they do.
If we're going to start delving into discussions that'll close this board let's at least make it interesting: It's time to play...
I'm going to suggest a Mega for each Type (in addition to some special cases); I'm also going to try and be Kalos focused.
Special Cases: Chesnaught, Delphox, Greninja, Xerneas, Yveltal, Zygarde, Volcanion
Normal: Dudunsparce
Fighting: Hawlucha
Flying: Staraptor
Poison: Seviper
Ground: Flygon
Rock: Tyrantrum
Bug: Vespiquen
Ghost: Golurk
Steel: Klefki
Fire: Pyroar
Water: Barbaracle
Grass: Gogoat
Electric: Normal Raichu (the OG Pikachu Evo needs a break)
Psychic: Malamar
Ice: Normal Avalugg
Dragon: Noivern
Dark: Kingambit
Fairy: Jynx (Type changes to Ice/Fairy)
Special Cases: Chesnaught, Delphox, Greninja, Xerneas, Yveltal, Zygarde, Volcanion
Normal: Dudunsparce
Fighting: Hawlucha
Flying: Staraptor
Poison: Seviper
Ground: Flygon
Rock: Tyrantrum
Bug: Vespiquen
Ghost: Golurk
Steel: Klefki
Fire: Pyroar
Water: Barbaracle
Grass: Gogoat
Electric: Normal Raichu (the OG Pikachu Evo needs a break)
Psychic: Malamar
Ice: Normal Avalugg
Dragon: Noivern
Dark: Kingambit
Fairy: Jynx (Type changes to Ice/Fairy)
You are doing the thing where you agree with someone and then yell at them anyways lol
I've been saying the same shit for days. I haven't been "talking in circles"
and as long as I keep getting replied to with "Who cares! They'll do what they want!" I'll reply with "Yeah, that was literally my point, no need to reply to me to say that"
Something I don't think anyone here has mentioned is the possibility of Regional Variant Mega Evolutions. I think there's probably going to be a few regional variants even if they can't Mega Evolve because it's an easy way to make "new" Pokemon and I can see adapting to urban environment leading to change. Even if they don't add new regional variants, it's still possible because Slowbro gained a Galarian variant after Mega Evolution was removed from the main games. Will there be Mega Galarian Slowbro or will Game Freak just ignore Galarian Slowpoke? Legends: Arceus had Alolan Vulpix for some reason, so it's not crazy to expect Galarian Slowpoke in Kalos, but you all know how predicatable Game Freak is...
I dont think mega regionals are impossible at all, i just wonder how much gamefreak is into mixing the two concepts. we literally wont know until they do it though lol.
i still think mega gren will be its own design honestly, i didnt reply bc i forgot lol but i know that it was popular when the anime was airing, but my point was that it has seen a large sharp decline in relevancy after the dissapointing league loss + refusal to feature it in following anime season + how specific the distribution was for it and how it wasnt a mon that was easy to use in casual and comp (unless you were a smogon player) + greninja itself was always a pretty popular pokemon, so i dont think ash gren was what made gren popular, but it was rather a mega zard situation where a popular pokemon got something because it was popular, making it even more popular in the process.
greninja itself still gets featured everywhere, and gf itself kinda retconning it out and the anime erasing it is a lot more damning than hisui or whatever tbh. the latter we always knew were gonna get shoehorned in games with some flimsy argument for it (or none really), but ash gren got some weird spiky pikachu/contest pikachu level of being stuck on its single playable generation. they're all also still referenced in various places, but remain stuck there (i think ash gren is getting the worst deal too because at least they didnt try to erase spiky pichu/contest pikachu presence from its own narrative retroactively. god that shit is still so funny to me)
now im not gonna say is impossible. but also this is the gamefreak that gave zard 2 megas and a gmax form, i dont think a second greninja form completely unrelated to a previous one is below them lmfao
i still think mega gren will be its own design honestly, i didnt reply bc i forgot lol but i know that it was popular when the anime was airing, but my point was that it has seen a large sharp decline in relevancy after the dissapointing league loss + refusal to feature it in following anime season + how specific the distribution was for it and how it wasnt a mon that was easy to use in casual and comp (unless you were a smogon player) + greninja itself was always a pretty popular pokemon, so i dont think ash gren was what made gren popular, but it was rather a mega zard situation where a popular pokemon got something because it was popular, making it even more popular in the process.
greninja itself still gets featured everywhere, and gf itself kinda retconning it out and the anime erasing it is a lot more damning than hisui or whatever tbh. the latter we always knew were gonna get shoehorned in games with some flimsy argument for it (or none really), but ash gren got some weird spiky pikachu/contest pikachu level of being stuck on its single playable generation. they're all also still referenced in various places, but remain stuck there (i think ash gren is getting the worst deal too because at least they didnt try to erase spiky pichu/contest pikachu presence from its own narrative retroactively. god that shit is still so funny to me)
now im not gonna say is impossible. but also this is the gamefreak that gave zard 2 megas and a gmax form, i dont think a second greninja form completely unrelated to a previous one is below them lmfao
It's not impossible but I don't think that the Pokémon Company is all that married to Ash-Greninja design to revamp it as a mega despite how appropriate it would be. It doesn't bode well that they retconned Ash-Greninja in the anime and in the games with Battle Bond inclusion without the form change.
Superman games should NOT be about punching harder(nor should movies etc). Trying to find ways to do that is why so much Superman media sucks. Superman games should be a puzzle game, where the goal is not "solve problem", because Superman can always do that. The goal is "Solve problem with a minimum of damage". Think Hitman, but as a good guy.
Superman can travel at the speed of light(game is paused except for you), but if he interacts with anything at that speed, it explodes and your damage counter ticks up. He can step in front of a train, but damage counter ticks up A LOT when it hits him. Use a heavy attack on a human bad guy, kill him and fail the game. So the entire goal becomes finding ways to interact with things and solve problems, without damaging anything. Melt guns instead of punching people, toggle between speeds to reach objectives and then resolve them at human speeds, locate explosives with X-Ray vision and disarm them before the bad guys even start their speech. And then have Lois write an article criticizing or praising you depending on how things went.
Make Superman both blatantly overpowered AND make the player still struggle because doing things right is so much harder than doing them easily.
Superman can travel at the speed of light(game is paused except for you), but if he interacts with anything at that speed, it explodes and your damage counter ticks up. He can step in front of a train, but damage counter ticks up A LOT when it hits him. Use a heavy attack on a human bad guy, kill him and fail the game. So the entire goal becomes finding ways to interact with things and solve problems, without damaging anything. Melt guns instead of punching people, toggle between speeds to reach objectives and then resolve them at human speeds, locate explosives with X-Ray vision and disarm them before the bad guys even start their speech. And then have Lois write an article criticizing or praising you depending on how things went.
Make Superman both blatantly overpowered AND make the player still struggle because doing things right is so much harder than doing them easily.
The Slowpoke line is so weird TBH.
Slowpoke to Slowbro via level and then Slowbro Mega.
Slowpoke to Slowking via trade+item
GSlowpoke to GSlowbro via item
GSlowpoke to GSlowking via a slightly more expensive item
And then Slowbro and Slowking are clear equivalents, while GSlowbro sucks compared to the other 3. And Mega-Slowbro is one of the few megas that's sometimes worse than the base form. I'm not sure what they're going to do with the line, but it's a mess and I wish they'd fix it.
I've been wondering about Pokémon size variance and how it could factor into LZ-A. Some have pointed out that the Onix seen in the trailer is noticeably small, with suggestions that it could be due to the size variation. However, after thinking about the real-time battle system I believe that individual Pokémon will not vary in size in this game since it would affect their hitbox. Doing so would make it either harder or easier for individual members of the same species to dodge attacks and could potentially be punishing to the player in a way that would be hard to gague or control. Imagine if the final boss had attacks with area of effects that a tiny Feraligatr could reasonably dodge but is almost impossible for a large Feraligatr to do so? GameFreak may very well want to avoid such a scenario.
Despite this, I think that the game will still generate a Scale value between 0-255 for each Pokémon that would make their size variation visible in other games such as LA and SV. Additionally, I do think that the Scale value will have a direct impact on one specific Kalos line, that being Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist. Perhaps the form size of the Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist will now depend on its internal Scale value? When upgrading the lock-on feature in SV, some Pokémon will show a small black icon if its Scale value is 59 and below or show a big red icon if its Scale value is 196 and above. Perhaps GameFreak can use the same ranges for Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist's forms, as follows:
Small Size: 0-59
Average Size: 60-195
Large Size: 196-250
Super Size: 251-255
The above Scale value ranges would make it so that Super Size Pumpkaboo are generated at roughly the same rate as in XY (when accounting for the collective spawn rate of all forms in that game). It would be neat if the Scale icons they added in SV were a sort of precursor to the Scale ranges for Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist forms in LZ-A!
At any rate, I think that Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist will be the only Pokémon in LZ-A that will display size variation and perform differently in battle because of it.
Despite this, I think that the game will still generate a Scale value between 0-255 for each Pokémon that would make their size variation visible in other games such as LA and SV. Additionally, I do think that the Scale value will have a direct impact on one specific Kalos line, that being Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist. Perhaps the form size of the Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist will now depend on its internal Scale value? When upgrading the lock-on feature in SV, some Pokémon will show a small black icon if its Scale value is 59 and below or show a big red icon if its Scale value is 196 and above. Perhaps GameFreak can use the same ranges for Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist's forms, as follows:
Small Size: 0-59
Average Size: 60-195
Large Size: 196-250
Super Size: 251-255
The above Scale value ranges would make it so that Super Size Pumpkaboo are generated at roughly the same rate as in XY (when accounting for the collective spawn rate of all forms in that game). It would be neat if the Scale icons they added in SV were a sort of precursor to the Scale ranges for Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist forms in LZ-A!
At any rate, I think that Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist will be the only Pokémon in LZ-A that will display size variation and perform differently in battle because of it.
I get what you mean but for this specific example they'd probably size-lock the starters (which iirc is the case for both SV and PLA)
That would potentially be messy with Home transfers and whatnot
With that said, I do think these ranges are plausible for Gourgeist, but they'll probably be set after the form is defined as usual.
ice-types confirmed locked to the endgame again...
For Hissuian stuff, I do believe that Sneasler being Poison/Ice and being an alternate evolution of regular Sneasel, and Overqwil evolving from regular Qwilfish, would had worked better. Sneasler is rare in the modern day due to an evo item being rare, Overqwil is rare in the modern day the same way Wyrdeer is: It requires a move the preevo cannot naturally learn. And I still believe Fennekin would had been a better choice than Cyndaquil for a fire starter, and Z-A quite confirms it in my view with the starters being Johto with a random pig.
Growlithe and Voltorb work just fine due to being human-adjacent species and the changes being a lost breed and tech evolving, and Ursaluna, like Kingambit, Rhyperior or Archaludon, should had always been a Mega.
Still, just opinions. I really liked Kalos back in the day, but in a way that made me hyped for a third version, and this comes a decade later and I have high hopes for the content. Legendary lore, Eternal Floette, new megas, potential regionals... even new species, as DLC did that in SV.
Hoping trailers and teasers are a thing this year, 2024 rode on the leaks for main series info.
Growlithe and Voltorb work just fine due to being human-adjacent species and the changes being a lost breed and tech evolving,
Still, just opinions. I really liked Kalos back in the day, but in a way that made me hyped for a third version, and this comes a decade later and I have high hopes for the content. Legendary lore, Eternal Floette, new megas, potential regionals... even new species, as DLC did that in SV.
Hoping trailers and teasers are a thing this year, 2024 rode on the leaks for main series info.
Guys. I'm crying and shaking rn. I don't see any sign of my beloved PR Video Studio here or anywhere else on the map. We can't lose PR Video chads, can we? Not like this bros... not like this.....
dark days ahead of us......
Could have moved (Lumiose City has notably grown in size), or it's just in one of those normal looking buildings.
Two places I hope return & expanded upon is the Poke Ball Boutique and the Stone Emporium.
While you can buy your normal Poke Balls at Pokemon Centers (which I don't see marked on the Z-A map, huh), Poke Ball Boutique could be where you go to get rarer Poke Balls. Now in the original game they dropped the ball (pun completely intended) and it's just a glorified Poke Ball-only Pokemart which only purpose it grinding up "Style Points" by buying cheap Premier Balls (which is the only way to get Premier Balls without buying 10 other Pokeballs, but never had an issue not having enough Premier Balls). However this is their chance to actually make it interesting by having it either directly sell or allow you to make the Apricorn Pokeballs. While I doubt we'll have a crafting system like L:Arceus, I could see them having some kind of material gathering mechanic you can then give to stores for items. Like here the Poke Ball Boutique hired an Apricorn Poke Ball maker; keeping in tradition of Legends featuring relatives of important NPCs, I'd have the maker be Kurt's granddaughter (named Chie/Maizie in the anime) who continued her grandfather's trade with modernized techniques. She's now able to make Apricorn Poke Balls as soon as you give her the Apricorns, but the problem is she doesn't have the additional materials to do so (a reason it took a day for Kurt to make them is because he got the materials himself cause he knew where to go); Thus it now falls on the player to get these materials from Pokemon. That way it both keeps the "specialness" of the Apricorn Pokeballs but also lets us have multiples of them to use (either because of their effect or, more likely, matching them with the Pokemon we're catching). Oh, and of course the store would have a way of getting Safari, Sport, Dream, & Beast; Maybe also add in the modern day version of the Heavy (rename to "Hefty" or "Kilo"?)/Leaded/Gigaton and Feather/Wing/Jet.
As for the Stone Emporium, I think it should receive an upgrade to the "Evolution Emporium". As not only would it be selling the Evolution Stones (and maybe some Mega Stones), but it could also be where you go to buy the other items some Pokemon need to evolve (including the Linking Cord).
This is an intriguing video. tl;dw OP does some some fuckery with measuring screenshots to figure out how big Legends Z-A Lumiose City is compared to Hisui and comes up with a range of anywhere between 1/3 and 2x the size of Obsidian Fieldlands. I've felt the physical size was a bit small like many others but it's good to have decently solidish confirmation.
So, what does this mean? Well, two options everyone else has already proposed:
1) Lumiose City is going to be extremely dense, every building has 50 things to do
2) There's a huge chunk of map design we are not yet privy to (Going outside the city in a major capacity is copium but I could see the oft-speculated catacombs equivalent or something like that)
Boring answer is a bit of both, I reckon. Even for an urban sandbox we can't possibly have the exact same sights from the first proper gameplay trailer for 20 hours straight.
Good time to remind people that this game is supposed to have 4 years of development time. Like ok, there's no explicit confirmation of this, but it seems like that should be the case given what we know and just the general state of affairs with the brand and its scheduling. Lewtwo seems convinced of this and while he doesn't have insider information if you know him you know that he's studied how these games are made more than basically any other even semi-major community figurehead, so I trust that he knows his stuff. Bottom line is that sooner or later we're going to have to figure out where that extra year actually went: We can rule out a drastic visual fidelity bump-up and while getting the real-time battle system up and running and polishing it up doubtlessly has a part it can't be everything