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Little things you like about Pokémon

Apparently the gen 4 games had several of the Pokemon Stadium modes built into the main games, with the "Pokemon Communication Club Colleseum" acting as a hub for these extra modes like Little Cup and Fancy Cup. I never played any of the gen 4 games online, so learning this was extremely cool.

It is unfortunate to see that they engaged in Smogon's tyrannical policy of banning healthy strategies like Dragon Rage and Sonic Boom, but if you can get past that, it seems like it would have been a fun time. Here's hoping extra modes like these come to Champions.

Also think its cool that official Pokemon Channel has videos like this: (
) that explain obscure mechanics.
 
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Magcargo said:
It is unfortunate to see that they engaged in Smogon's tyrannical policy of banning healthy strategies like Dragon Rage and Sonic Boom
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Doesn't Dragon Rage OHKO literally everything in the Little Cup format? At least prior to the introduction of Fairy. I am not an expert on Little Cup, but I highly doubt keeping DR (which has no accuracy penalty and more PP than true OHKO moves) would have been healthy, especially in the context of Gen 4. Sonic Boom is in a similar boat since the bulkiest viable mon I am aware of (at least in Gen 4) is Munchlax, which has 30 HP. Most anything in LC probably falls to a single Sonic Boom after minor chip.

Game Freak was very justified in those move bans so the format could like. Function at all.
 
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Karxrida said:
Doesn't Dragon Rage OHKO literally everything in the Little Cup format? At least prior to the introduction of Fairy. I am not an expert on Little Cup, but I highly doubt keeping DR (which has no accuracy penalty and more PP than true OHKO moves) would have been healthy, especially in the context of Gen 4. Sonic Boom is in a similar boat since the bulkiest viable mon I am aware of (at least in Gen 4) is Munchlax, which has 30 HP. Most anything in LC probably falls to a single Sonic Boom after minor chip.

Game Freak was very justified in those move bans so the format could like. Function at all.
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I just assumed they were joking about it being tyranny

post it in discord and you'd get everyone reacting with 1 9 8 4 emotes
 
Stumbled across one of the scripts for an earlier game on a website (as in the game's text, not the code) and something I noticed both Gen II and III have is a character who says "My Pokemon brought me some mail from my boyfriend/girlfriend who lives overseas!" It's such a cute idea and one of those little immersive details I like. In Gen II the girl who says this is in Olivine City (so possibly her boyfriend lives in Cianwood, but likely a different region altogether), while in Gen III there's a couple whose progress you can actually follow - the guy in Fortree City who sends a love note to a girl in Mossdeep. I don't recall it being mentioned in Gen I due to the lack of mail in those games but in FRLG there's a girl on One Island who wants to trade with her boyfriend "who lives far away" which I'm to assume is Hoenn, since she subsequently is able to do so after we fix the Network Machine.

Obviously from Gen IV this isn't really a thing due to NPCs being able to use the GTS, but you do still get the occasional reference to someone having received a traded Pokemon from across the globe. The boy in Alola who says he got a Mewtwo from a Wonder Trade is hilarious.
 
Random shower thought I just had, but I only just now made the connection in my head about why these three have the stats they do:

:XY/uxie: :XY/mesprit: :XY/azelf:

Uxie being the defensive one (and slightly faster than Mesprit, actually) maybe be a nod to its role as the Being of Knowledge, since wisdom is something that is preserved over time and, in battle, it might also be commentary about how there’s more strategy to Pokémon than just spamming strong attackers.

Mesprit being the balanced one, to me that immediately makes me think of the idea of a balanced emotional core, and how one or more emotions having too much power over other emotions can be incredibly detrimental. It’s also the one who lives the closest to where the player character is from which could be representative of the kind of “blank slate” style Pokémon protagonists are usually designed around.

Finally, Azelf being the offensive one makes me think of its role as the Being of Willpower and the idea of strengthening yourself and pushing through adversity even in hard times. It being the fastest of the three also makes me think of how our procrastination can hold us back from success if our own willpower is weak and we end up giving up before chasing whatever it is we’re trying to accomplish or find.
 
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bdt2002 said:
Random shower thought I just had, but I only just now made the connection in my head about why these three have the stats they do:

:XY/uxie: :XY/mesprit: :XY/azelf:

Uxie being the defensive one (and slightly faster than Mesprit, actually) maybe be a nod to its role as the Being of Knowledge, since wisdom is something that is preserved over time and, in battle, it might also be commentary about how there’s more strategy to Pokémon than just spamming strong attackers.
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This is basically canonised I think - if you look at the wings introduced in Gen V, the Sp.Atk-boosting feather is the Genius Feather (called Mind Feather in the originals) while the Sp.Def-boosting feather is the Clever Feather (Intelligence Feather in the originals). I'm reasonably sure there's a couple of other instances in which cleverness/wisdom is associated with the Special stats but none come to mind right this second.

bdt2002 said:
Mesprit being the balanced one, to me that immediately makes me think of the idea of a balanced emotional core, and how one or more emotions having too much power over other emotions can be incredibly detrimental. It’s also the one who lives the closest to where the player character is from which could be representative of the kind of “blank slate” style Pokémon protagonists are usually designed around.
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That's a pretty interesting thought with regards to Mesprit. It's given a vague sort of link to the player in the games, for which the obvious explanation seems to be "it's the one near where you're from", but I hadn't really considered that it's because Mesprit is the most temperamentally alike to the player. It's yet another one of those story beats where the games make a token gesture at it and the anime and Adventures manga subsequently flesh it out a bit more; both of those continuities pair up each of their trios with one of the lake guardians.

I've always thought that the scene in DPP in which Professor Rowan assigns the player, Barry, and Dawn/Lucas one of the three lakes each is interesting precisely for that reason - Dawn/Lucas get Verity because it's conveniently close to Rowan's lab, Rowan assigns Barry to go to Acuity because "the road there is harsh and [he] needs a strong trainer", while the player basically ends up with Valor by default. But that's completely mismatched personality-wise: Barry clearly fits Azelf better, while Lucas/Dawn (though a tad underwritten and canonically not great at their job) matches well with Uxie given their pursuit of knowledge, leaving Mesprit to the player. Theorycrafting a bit but I can imagine a version of the story in which that mismatch actually plays a role in the story - perhaps the lake guardians will only awaken for a person of similar temperament, and because each character gets the "wrong" one, this allows Team Galactic to kidnap them because they're still sleeping and can't defend themselves. But that would make Professor Rowan implicitly culpable for that happening and maybe we can't have that, idk.
 
Raihan's sandaconda took krabby(nfe or no exp)'s crab hammer...barely but still, obese atk stat and I was ofc a bit overleveled. It looked like a hack, given Id ohkod a similar ish lvl drapion and scrafty recently. Might be a decent mon, if ting lu could just get lost.
 
I wasn't sure if putting this in this thread or the "things that annoy you" one.

I had this suggested to me from youtube
(note: mild ZA spoilers if you haven't played it)

I missed several of those easter eggs / details, and watching through them, I have a conflicted feeling of
- I'm happy they put so much thought in small details and easter eggs that attentive fans will notice and smile at, shows they care.
- I actually wish they'd put more time in polishing the actual game than throwing small easter eggs that most people won't even notice.

I enjoyed ZA, but there are several parts that are insufferable / unpolished. It's, like most Switch pokemon games, in my list of "good game, but not remotely worth the full price".
Sometimes, I do question where their priorities go while developing the games. Fanservice is nice, but at this point I think most of the fans would much rather have less fanservice and more polish...
 
Worldie said:
I wasn't sure if putting this in this thread or the "things that annoy you" one.

I had this suggested to me from youtube
(note: mild ZA spoilers if you haven't played it)

I missed several of those easter eggs / details, and watching through them, I have a conflicted feeling of
- I'm happy they put so much thought in small details and easter eggs that attentive fans will notice and smile at, shows they care.
- I actually wish they'd put more time in polishing the actual game than throwing small easter eggs that most people won't even notice.

I enjoyed ZA, but there are several parts that are insufferable / unpolished. It's, like most Switch pokemon games, in my list of "good game, but not remotely worth the full price".
Sometimes, I do question where their priorities go while developing the games. Fanservice is nice, but at this point I think most of the fans would much rather have less fanservice and more polish...
Click to expand...

I do not think that putting in easter eggs meant less polish
It's not necessarily a zero sum game. These are all small little things that were likely easy to account for/put in and felt added cute flavor. Removing every single easter egg would not have meant a better (to whatever degree) game.
 
Worldie said:
I wasn't sure if putting this in this thread or the "things that annoy you" one.

I had this suggested to me from youtube
(note: mild ZA spoilers if you haven't played it)

I missed several of those easter eggs / details, and watching through them, I have a conflicted feeling of
- I'm happy they put so much thought in small details and easter eggs that attentive fans will notice and smile at, shows they care.
- I actually wish they'd put more time in polishing the actual game than throwing small easter eggs that most people won't even notice.

I enjoyed ZA, but there are several parts that are insufferable / unpolished. It's, like most Switch pokemon games, in my list of "good game, but not remotely worth the full price".
Sometimes, I do question where their priorities go while developing the games. Fanservice is nice, but at this point I think most of the fans would much rather have less fanservice and more polish...
Click to expand...
R_N said:
I do not think that putting in easter eggs meant less polish
It's not necessarily a zero sum game. These are all small little things that were likely easy to account for/put in and felt added cute flavor. Removing every single easter egg would not have meant a better (to whatever degree) game.
Click to expand...

I was going to say, I'm no defender of the modern games but this isn't an entirely new phenomenon, there were examples of this in the older ones too. Like I'm thinking of how GSC had a bunch of delightful obscure mechanics and secrets yet when it came to the Apricorn Pokeballs nearly all of them are bugged in some way.
 
Worldie said:
I wasn't sure if putting this in this thread or the "things that annoy you" one.

I had this suggested to me from youtube
(note: mild ZA spoilers if you haven't played it)

I missed several of those easter eggs / details, and watching through them, I have a conflicted feeling of
- I'm happy they put so much thought in small details and easter eggs that attentive fans will notice and smile at, shows they care.
- I actually wish they'd put more time in polishing the actual game than throwing small easter eggs that most people won't even notice.

I enjoyed ZA, but there are several parts that are insufferable / unpolished. It's, like most Switch pokemon games, in my list of "good game, but not remotely worth the full price".
Sometimes, I do question where their priorities go while developing the games. Fanservice is nice, but at this point I think most of the fans would much rather have less fanservice and more polish...
Click to expand...
Counterpoint: in the ZA discussion thread the fact that you can't pay off Taunie's debt to Corbeau if you have the money spawned multiple posts lamenting the lack of this easter egg. Now multiply that by 33 if these easter eggs didn't exist. :P
 
I'm on holiday tomorrow which means I can finally play ZA. I can't believe I have managed to be not spoiled by story stuff...but I have to admit the few things I have been spoiled about do look pretty cool.

I was going to make a post praising Mega Lucario Z even if I prefer the vanilla onr but I will wait until actually using it.

Menawhile, I just want to talk about who may as well be my new favourite Pokemon design-wise, I like it so much I'm not even mad I was spoiled. Trough knowing this fandom, the reaction to it will probably be the opposite to mine.

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This thing is not an Ultra Beast , a Mystery Dungeon being or an Eternatus deal, it's just my favourite Mythical that for some reason has gotten a Mega, and an extremely unique at one. I'm sure people will be annoyed it isn't the usual "cool edgy" vanilla Darkrai is, but for me this is even better. Pure eldritch horror in a quite simple way. I have no idea if it's a good boss fight, I don't even know if I will like ZA's battle system but holy shit I hope I really like it. It's just perfect on a lot of levels that this is an actual mon the player can use.
 
Without spoiling anything when I look at the final Mega Evolution list now I feel incredibly satisfied. It feels like every horizon one can think of for the mechanic has been covered repeatedly and excellently: Mythicals, Legendaries, starters, dual Megas for individual Pokemon, Alola, Galar & Paldea Megas and tons for Kalos too. Opinions may differ but I think Z-A's decision to forego regional forms and evolutions entirely has been completely vindicated. It'll probably be another decade+ until we can even begin to contemplate the idea of even more new ones but unlike post-ORAS I don't mind at all and even struggle to imagine what more there is to do aside from a handful of token Gen 10/11 guys
 
Yung Dramps said:
Without spoiling anything when I look at the final Mega Evolution list now I feel incredibly satisfied. It feels like every horizon one can think of for the mechanic has been covered repeatedly and excellently: Mythicals, Legendaries, starters, dual Megas for individual Pokemon, Alola, Galar & Paldea Megas and tons for Kalos too. Opinions may differ but I think Z-A's decision to forego regional forms and evolutions entirely has been completely vindicated. It'll probably be another decade+ until we can even begin to contemplate the idea of even more new ones but unlike post-ORAS I don't mind at all and even struggle to imagine what more there is to do aside from a handful of token Gen 10/11 guys
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You’re making
Typhlosion, Hydreigon, Goodra, Kommo-o and Dragapult
cry
 
Yung Dramps said:
Without spoiling anything when I look at the final Mega Evolution list now I feel incredibly satisfied. It feels like every horizon one can think of for the mechanic has been covered repeatedly and excellently: Mythicals, Legendaries, starters, dual Megas for individual Pokemon, Alola, Galar & Paldea Megas and tons for Kalos too. Opinions may differ but I think Z-A's decision to forego regional forms and evolutions entirely has been completely vindicated. It'll probably be another decade+ until we can even begin to contemplate the idea of even more new ones but unlike post-ORAS I don't mind at all and even struggle to imagine what more there is to do aside from a handful of token Gen 10/11 guys
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I was looking for a Mega Flygon meme to respond to this, I found this over a year old post.

The fact this was actually stupidly accurate amazes me.
1765539550651.png
 
Yung Dramps said:
Without spoiling anything when I look at the final Mega Evolution list now I feel incredibly satisfied. It feels like every horizon one can think of for the mechanic has been covered repeatedly and excellently: Mythicals, Legendaries, starters, dual Megas for individual Pokemon, Alola, Galar & Paldea Megas and tons for Kalos too. Opinions may differ but I think Z-A's decision to forego regional forms and evolutions entirely has been completely vindicated. It'll probably be another decade+ until we can even begin to contemplate the idea of even more new ones but unlike post-ORAS I don't mind at all and even struggle to imagine what more there is to do aside from a handful of token Gen 10/11 guys
Click to expand...

I mostly agree, but only one gen 8 Mega is a pretty strange note to end on, similar to how Audino being the only gen 5 Mega or Diancie being the only one from gen 6 was pretty weird. Granted, Falinks seems to be a much better-received choice than Audino was, and a lot of gen 8 'mons have G-Maxes, but I think there was some design space for both popular 'mons like Dragapult or some more neglected/weaker ones like Pincurchin or Grapploct. Certainly I would have chosen more gen 8 over
even more dual megas, but after ten years it's probably not worth dying on that hill anymore.


oh and flygon yeah that would have been cool too ig
 
Yeah it definitely feels like the DLC should have had at least one other gen 8 mon, especially when it both went deeper on Gen 7 megas and gave us a delightful surprise of several Paldea megas. Gen 8 has a lot of weirdos who could have gotten more weird imo.

And TBH I think it should have had more gen 6. Like I get that proportional to its dex it's actually doing fine and obviously the design budget couldn't be expanded more and you still want to make sure you get a nice big spread of Pokemon but I dunno...it's Kalos! You're finally doing megas in Kalos! Do more




Still it is quite the spread when taken in full.
 
I feel like Mega Goodra definitely would've been under consideration if it hadn't just got a Hisuian form last Legends game. Also Heliolisk if Clemont was in

As for Galar I think it would've been a good bit if they did Mega Grimmsnarl because of its Dark/Fairy typing. As for mons without GMaxes, Barraskewda mayhaps? Or even throw a curveball and give one of the regional evos like Mr. Rime or Cursola a Mega
 
I have a personal conspiracy theory that Mega GarchompZ started life as a Mega Dragapult design until some higher up decided that they needed a more popular Pokemon to gate behind an exclusive event and ordered it be retooled.
 
Z-A is genuinely a funny game
Did the mission with Advise, who you confirm some new trainer tips for. He says he may as well be a tip sign he's so dedicated to it.

At the end of the mission, you choose which tip you find most useful...but because you have to get permits and construction on it, it'll be a while. So in the mean time, he will be the tip board.


Literally
20251212131439-01-KC9-W714-AKTZ1-EBN6-Z0-R9-A560.jpg
 
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