Wonder if this is kinda their way of honouring the Friend Safari- I don’t think it’s a coincidence that at first it’s just 3 Pokémon of 1 type.
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Pokémon Legends: Z-A General Discussion
- Thread starter DHR-107
- Start date
Zeraora came out one year late; if it came out just a single year earlier it could have been part of Sacksonville
I've felt for a while that Pikachu's prevalence works out poorly for Electric as a whole. Even when the pikaclones started having alternate types, that's still one of the Electric lines being made under some pretty specific (and already done) design constraints. To some extent, having Electric be an iconic type by way of Pikachu is also limiting the designs: it ends up being available early because casual players expect to see it, and early mons have a tendency towards simpler typings and more "standard animal recolour" designs.
This, of course, is no excuse for Zeraora, which is obviously neither a pikaclone nor an early-game mon. We already have Dedenne and Helioptile, it should be at least as cool as Magnemite or Lanturn.
Bro really said the Pika Clones are holding this Type back, and while as a Pichu superfan I unfortunately have to agree, the Type does still have a ton of bangers especially among fully evolved Pokémon (including the aforementioned Lanturn):
Are we still trying to make Zeraora a thing? I have been ambivalent to this thing since Gen 7 and its continued presence as the equivalent of an Industry Plant has only embittered me to it more over time. I can't stand its design, its stat line is both boring and ineffective (wow, a glassy mid-power Fast Attacker, never seen THAT on an Electric type before), its movepool screams "Unova without TMs" for how little coverage or variety it gets even WITH it, and it once again feels like TPC trying to recreate Lucario's popularity like they did with Zoroark (a mildly Anthropomorphic Bipedal Mon centered in the marketing and starring in a new movie without a God-Legendary role).
I have never encountered any significant number of people that care about or genuinely like this mon (yes they exist by law of averages but I've run into random fans of much "lamer" Pokemon without having to even seek them out), and it more than anything makes me feel the "this could have been another mon" sense with the Mega being a pure Electric Feline that clearly reminds of the color scheme for a mon that definitely would have benefitted more from a Mega or otherwise balance buff.
I have never encountered any significant number of people that care about or genuinely like this mon (yes they exist by law of averages but I've run into random fans of much "lamer" Pokemon without having to even seek them out), and it more than anything makes me feel the "this could have been another mon" sense with the Mega being a pure Electric Feline that clearly reminds of the color scheme for a mon that definitely would have benefitted more from a Mega or otherwise balance buff.
My conspiracy theory remains that Electric types are kept boring because outside of Legendaries, they don't want them to upstage Pikachu. Can't have little Jimmy seeing something like Ampharos or Galvantula or Rotom, thinking "wow, this is so much cooler" and then demanding plushes of the other mons instead of the 68 Pikachu toys they already made. Hyperbole aside, I genuinely can believe that not competing with the mascot's market share is a constraint on both the stat and visual design of many new Electric lines (the Pikaclones being the most pushed Electrics in things like the anime or spin-offs likely owing to that resemblance), especially since arguably some of the most creative Electrics since Gen 1 happened in Gen 5, where Pikachu was not in the game and thus not as in-focus (Stunfisk, Galvantula, two Legendaries, and definitely the most-unique Pikaclone to that point).
I feel like the general populace probably does wind up liking Zeraora more than the online fandom believes just because they keep doing things with it. If it was something being forced and it didn't work out they'd just put it out like a normal mythic or legend. Meanwhile this thing has gotten relatively consistent "big" things up to and including one of the first life sized plush.
Briefly changing topics over to how Mega Zeraora is going to be made available, if I had to guess it’s going to be another Diancie situation, expect this time it may be tied to the DLC paywall on top of the required event item. My first thought was that it could appear in the part of the city with the electrical substation, but then I remembered, assuming I’m thinking of the right area, it was turned into a Wild Zone (specifically Zone 14 is the one I had in mind) so this probably won’t work.
In any case, I think the other Mystery Gift event we know about will be released in between now and the DLC release date. Zeraora’s own “distribution” could very well end up being a Pokémon Day thing, or maybe I’m way off with all of this and it’s just going to be something you casually find without an event akin to a Keldeo or a Meloetta situation.
In any case, I think the other Mystery Gift event we know about will be released in between now and the DLC release date. Zeraora’s own “distribution” could very well end up being a Pokémon Day thing, or maybe I’m way off with all of this and it’s just going to be something you casually find without an event akin to a Keldeo or a Meloetta situation.
I think it will be a normally available Pokemon within the DLC that you have to do a sidequest for and not an additional mystery gift event. There's genuinely no reason to read
and assume otherwise.
I didn’t realize they said that. That’s on me, my bad
To my understanding this DLC is smaller in scale than the DLCs for Galar and Paldea, but even so I feel like the time gaps in between trailers for this and the base game have been inconsistent with the amount of new content per trailer. In my ideal world, smaller trailers would be included in between longer ones that take more time and have more content, if that makes sense. I just don’t feel like waiting two weeks for just one Mega reveal, but that’s ultimately a nitpick.
Yeah, clown on it though I may, Zeraora feels like one of those things that have a very different reception between the general audience and the fandom bubble. “We” don’t like it because it could have been a different type, or we think it looks like it “should” be a certain thing, or we have a concentrated dislike for anthro furbait mons, but I’m more than willing to bet that the casual Pokéfan really doesn’t care much about that kind of thing. Jo Public doesn’t even know what “furbait mon” is supposed to mean.
I already just don’t care for Zeraora as a design but wow, this mon’s Mega sure… exists. It doesn’t look bad but it just doesn’t push the needle at all for me, looks more like an alternate shiny than anything. And the 3D render for it might be the worst one of all time, please free the 2D Sugimori art…
I will say the disconnect between Alola and Zeraora is hilarious. The movie it was in just had him be a super rare cat pokemon chilling near a shrine in the forest and that's it. I think its popularity stems from not being related to Alola at all. You could argue many other mythicals also have the problem of not really being tied to their home region as well (exceptions like Keldeo) but I think Zeraora takes the cake here. Even in the regular anime, which maybe the trailer references, Zeraora shows up in an alternative dimension of Alola with a trainer fighting a Guzzlord. Maybe they were tempted to make this cat an ultra beast and just said screw it make it a mythical.
I think the trailers are specifically more frequent this time is due to the overall delay of Legends ZA and ultimately the DLC. They more than likely had all of this ready to go but it was originally planned to be spaced out more.
Honestly it's just neat in general that one of Mega Dimension's focuses is Megas for post-Kalos Pokemon and adding them in the Hyperspace Lumiose encounter pools. Reminds me of the good old days of remakes where after beating the main story (or Kyogre/Groudon in ORAS' case) you'd get to fiddle around with various newer-gen Pokemon hunting mechanics and see them in boss rematch teams
I think Zarude currently has it worse. Its one and only anime appearance was in its own movie, which had zero to do with Galar besides the odd Gen 8 mon/form, and in the games, it was just a mystery gift distribution.
Shame we're probably not getting the aet till next year. Assume they want the dlc out for a bit before dumping all the megas
It unfortunately seems to be that way, at least from what I’ve seen. It’s more than we got from Legends Arceus, but that also wasn’t attached to a $30 price tag. My leading theory at this time is that this even being a Kalos game in the first place has something to do with this seeming “lack” of content- it’s possible that whatever post-launch content, if any, was changed last minute when the decision to make a Kalos Legends game was made. I say that because the Mega Evolution emphasis here is a lot more Kalos-specific than something like the Daybreak update for Legends Arceus which could theoretically exist in any region.
Either way, it’s in Kalos’s nature to have entire games being scrapped and a lack of content after the main story, so I guess it’s fitting in that sense.
The decision to make this a Kalos Game was made long before we had talks of DLC thanks to the Tera leak. We know what this project was before Kalos and they only had concept art and story pitches but nothing in development in terms of gameplay. The decision to have any DLC was made once most of the base game was finalized and that's when they started brainstorming in full for DLC.
The Tera Leak is like a gift because we have a firm idea of how Game Freak plots out and develops these games.