He did like bugs yeah, the bug-catcher trainer class is likely directly inspired by him, but the reason they are heroic is tokusatsu stuff like Kamen Rider. There's a crazy amount of tokusatsu stuff in the basis of Pokemon as a series. I don't remember if he ever said specifically which Bug pokemon is his favorite but I know he apparently used Scyther in his first run of Red/Green.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
I don't necessarily disagree with your point, but Spikes wasn't a signature move because it was available to multiple Pokémon when introduced in Gen 2.
Also I'd say Smeargle doesn't really count because its entire gimmick is having access to every move. Exception that proves the rule or whatever.
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they are going to give the paldea starters broken signature moves to something in the future and it'll be really funny
Could definitely see at least Ludicolo getting Aqua Step somewhere down the line. The other two are a lot more specialized though.
Its prob going to be like the gen 7 starters sig moves, where one is widely distributed, one is given to one or two things that make sense, and the last one is still a sig move. Aqua step I could def see widely distributed, flower trick can prob be given to a few niche grasses that have some form of magic (shiftry could be one or maybe sceptile even? idk) and torch song would stay a sig move.
honestly you could probably give torch song to hisuian typhlosion
yeah probably, speaking of decidueye they better NEVER give something good Triple Arrows, lmao
easily the most ridiculous signature move for a non legendary
also I forgot spirit shackle existed.
Bulbapedia once had Spikes listed as a signature move for Pineco and Forretress in Gen 2 which I always thought was strange since Cloyster can most definitely use the move nowadays.
double checks their pages
Oh, look at that, someone actually fixed it since I last checked. I was going to say. It’s not just those three that got it but Qwilfish too. Now, as for the Smeargle example, I understand its gimmick but I still don’t necessarily like it because the way Smeargle is optimized encourages people to run the same moves on it almost every single time. Which to me seems like the exact opposite of the point of the Pokémon in the first place.
I mean, smeargle is a cool design idea, utilising every single move conceivable in theory sounds like it could allow for a wide array of diverse strategies, at the cost of having incredibly shitty stats. In practice, you just spam the same broken moves because anything else is either incredibly gimmicky to the point of being borderline unviable, or just being unviable.
Even if it didn't have such absymal stats, why wouldn't you use it in very specific ways? Like, you might open up an offensive set but its prob going to use something like sacred fire on 90% of said physical sets because that move is broken and using other things is just trying to be different for the sake of being different.
You could ofc say that smeargle should be unable to use specific moves, mostly sig ones (like they did with dark void), but then that defeats the purpose of the mon, its meant to be able to learn evey move. So you have a crossroad of using 1 or 2 strats, or going against the mons design.
Smeargle should have stayed on the design table, its cool in theory, in practice it flops immensly.
Even if it didn't have such absymal stats, why wouldn't you use it in very specific ways? Like, you might open up an offensive set but its prob going to use something like sacred fire on 90% of said physical sets because that move is broken and using other things is just trying to be different for the sake of being different.
You could ofc say that smeargle should be unable to use specific moves, mostly sig ones (like they did with dark void), but then that defeats the purpose of the mon, its meant to be able to learn evey move. So you have a crossroad of using 1 or 2 strats, or going against the mons design.
Smeargle should have stayed on the design table, its cool in theory, in practice it flops immensly.
VGC players would agree with the first half of that sentence, but not the second half. Smeargle is a menace in VGC.
When I said "flops immensly", I didn't mean competitively, smeargle definetely succeeds competitively. But in the design area of "having endless possibilities for movesets that the player can customise", it does flop. Sorry for the confusion
Toxtricity reaching further than Decidueye's Hidden Ability for the chance at a sound based Fire Move with a free +1.
Also for Triple Arrow, I can't think of anything with Archer flavor immediately besides base Decidueye, who is moderately better at using its secondary effects with 10 more Base Speed but probably appreciates it more for Ghost/Fighting Combo than those if anything
The addition of the movies Darkrai theme makes this way better the expected.
But as for the current topic, Yeah I do not see Triple Arrow be distributed until they make a second archer pokemon, and likely one that has either ok speed or ok attack, not both. Torch Song will live and (un?)die on Skeledirge unless they nerf it.
I think if you had told kid me that the silly painting beagle would be a competitive menace it would've been the funniest thing ever.
every once and a while you see some random fanpost of a smeargle evolution and the comments are just filled with comp players from both formats just screaming "NOOOOO NO NO NO NO"
I think this is two separate complaints, Signature Moves should remain signature, and movepools need to be more restricted.
On the first, part of the issue is that GF doesn't seem to value Signature Moves as a thing. It feels like they make something unique for mons because they are expected to have something unique, but there's no inherent value to that thing from GF's perspective, so they don't hesitate to spread it around in later games. Which...somewhat misses the point IMO. Giving every mon a unique move or ability makes all of those cool unique ideas blur together, and then they don't remain unique, so even if the mon started off with a really cool unique thing, it's watered down by the time the next gen rolls around. And I get part of it, they don't care as much about preserving old mons when they can sell you new ones, but that feels short-sighted. Things would be better long-term if fans felt that GF cared about the mons they were producing continuing to feel the same way they did when they were new. And signature moves would feel more special if everything down to Spidops didn't have one. Again, I get why, but it's shortsighted.
The other point, movepools, is worthy of multiple threads. Suffice to say that I think every mon should have access to reliable STAB of their type off their better attack stat unless there is a good reason not to, and I think that GF is torn heavily between "every move a mon knows should have a flavor justification" and "make things have lots of good options", and that leads to a situation where certain mons and types have very obvious gaps while others get everything they could ever desire. Making signature moves(hey we made a physical Electric Legendary, we better give it a signature move so it doesn't have to use Wild Charge) is a bandage for that problem, and redistributing signature moves after that makes sense, but it's a very slow method of fixing the problem.
It was the signature move of Pineco and Forretress in GS (Smeargle notwithstanding), Cloyster and Qwilfish only got the move in Crystal.