Pokemon Black & White, aka Gen 5. Coming to Japan in Fall 2010.

[skorpion123]

@Psychics-- I would like to see something adjusted here. Considering how absolutely dominating Psychics were in the first gen, it's sad to have seen them fall so far. I mean, just the release of 2 resistant types (steel/dark) and giving ghosts/bugs STAB moves means psychic suddenly just becomes crap overall?

I think rather than improving the Psychic type they focused on created Psychic Pokemon that are individually very powerful despite the problems of it being a psychic type. Most of them were legendaries. Since it's the typing of the legendaries I guess that is why Gamefreak choose this path. I am not sure they are going to improve the Psychic type.

But it would be nice to see AlaKazam to get something new that improves him. Maybe Psycho boost.

By the way the thread should be renamed so that the title would hint into it being possibly generation IV.

 

[cantab]

I don't expect nintendo to know much - if at all - about pokemon games hacking community.

I expect they might. I can't believe with all Nintendo's thousands of employees, NONE would know about hack Pokemon games. Of course whether that knowledge is able to get from the individual employees into the collective corporate knowledge is another matter.

 

[MrIndigo]

Just like GSC couldn't battle with RBY, RS couldn't connect with GSC at all and DP couldn't battle with Advance? Battling incompatibility has happened on ALL generations.

The only one of these that is a legit example is the first (and that was an inevitable incompatibility because it was only the first new generation); the later examples were all on different platforms and hence automatically incompatible.

Don't be daft; it's been pretty clear ever since Gen 2 that compatibility is a big deal; when they've only just released their 5 newest, most updated battle systems on a brand new device, they're not going to throw all that away (nor risk people skipping their US purchases of HGSS in lieu of waiting for the latter) when they don't have to.

It's not like you'd get a material gain in playability by adding more move slots or pokemon-per-team; and they are aware of the competitive side of the game and that will probably kill any kind of balance in the VGC game.

 

[Lord Jesseus]

The only one of these that is a legit example is the first (and that was an inevitable incompatibility because it was only the first new generation); the later examples were all on different platforms and hence automatically incompatible.

The GBA and GBC were perfectly compatible.

 

[MrIndigo]

The GBA and GBC were perfectly compatible.

Not really. GBA cartridges were far more powerful, and releasing games for the GBA that were only powerful enough for the GBC would have drawn criticism. Furthermore, the fact that GBC games could be played on the GBA only goes to show the value of backwards compatibility.

 

[StarWizard]

As for types, there's one that I think needs attention alongside Steel/Dragon: WATER. Water definitely deserves a spot along Dragon/Steel as an overpowering type. Like Dragon it is really powerful both offensively and defensively due to neutrality.

Agreed, Water rocks. But I don't think it's in the same level as those two. Besides, it's impossible - and probably not optimal - to make all the 18 types fair and/or equally good. Some times are simply going to be better. The way to fix Water it to make a move tutor with Volt Tackle and create another Electric physical move between Thunderpunch and Volt Tackle, probably something with 95-100 power and 90-95 accuracy.

offensively: Neutral to all types except dragon, grass and water (so all of them are weak to ice, except water which makes the water circle-jerk even more prevalent). What more could you ask for in a primary STAB, with ice as one of the best secondary attacking types in the game?

Ice is so dominant because it hits dragons. The other types that are weak to it are merely a plus. I mean, Ice sure is played for it's dominance over Grass and Flying, specially as a way for Water types to deal with Grass counters, but that's not the main reason.

defensively: Only weak to 2 types (grass = crap, electric = only average at best, both are very "meh" as a main stab)

Grass is actually quite decent, and Electric is only crap because Thunderpunch is all that exists from the physical side. Again, fix Electric and you ''fix" Water.

Compare that to dragon which is weak to ice (one of the best and most prevalent offensive types hands down) and resisted by steel (one of the best and most prevalent defensive types hands down), and you realize water as a type is arguably even better/more dominating than dragon.

Not even close. Dragon has elemental resistances and the type grants the ability to learn all elemental moves (or most of them). That's besides ridiculous moves like Outrage and Draco Meteor. Dragon is much more dominant than Water, specially because of the way the Dragon type is treated: with it comes, usually, more moves and more base stats. Water is fair.

The only real difference is that Dragons have Draco Meteor and Outrage along with better offensive base stats overall, but that doesn't change the fact that defensive water types are a bitch to take down and STAB water is not easy to defend against. Hell, water is such a nice attacking type that some pokemon use it as a secondary despite its lack of super effective hits and pokemon like Gyarados and Suicune can run sets that don't even have a secondary attack (crocune, res-talk gyara).

STAB water is only powerful as our regular Dragon moves when it's Hydro Pump, under the rain, and from something like a Modest Kingdra. Ok maybe I exaggerated, but Water types have much lower offensive stats overall.

I don't think alterations to water should be made, but I would like to see some much better grass and electric pokemon that learn good secondary moves (grass types that learn fire attacks, electric types that learn Ice Beam/Good Ice Physical). Another dragon type oriented towards beating water (isn't 4x weak to ice) would be nice.

I agree that fixing Grass/Electric and maybe adding a new type that's SE against Water and that Water doesn't resist can be a solution. But I think that dealing with Dragon/Steel/Psychic is much more urgent. Water is above average because it doesn't suck against the overpowered types and because 99% of the Water pokés learn Ice Beam. It has nothing to do with Water's resistances and what it's SE against, but it has everything to do with the fact that it's neutral against 15 types and has access to Ice Beam.

 

[boo836]

Speculation about the names is meaningless. Claiming they'll be amethyst and opal is thrown a spanner by the fact that pokemontopaz.com is registered too. Nintendo probably have loads of pokemon{something} domains registered. And there'd be no stopping them calling the new games something like Pokemon Black (domain pokemonblack.com is currently not Nintendo's) either.

1. I did not say anything about it being definate. However, the fact that they are reserved does give a fair chance.

2.These were the only ones found so far, and they are three stones again, fitting in with DP and RSE. Because of this, many can agree that TOA is PROBABLE.

 

[cantab]

The GBA and GBC were perfectly compatible.

The GBA was backwards compatible. But I don't think there were any dual-mode GBC/GBA games like there were GB/GBC, or even if such a game was possible. I also don't know if link between GBA games and GB(C) game was possible, since the link works in different ways.

 

[zarator]

The GBA was backwards compatible. But I don't think there were any dual-mode GBC/GBA games like there were GB/GBC, or even if such a game was possible. I also don't know if link between GBA games and GB(C) game was possible, since the link works in different ways.

Actually there were cables which could link GBA and GBC. I still have one somewhere in my room, iirc.

 

[Heartgold]

Next week feels ages away, next episode of pokemon Sunday, they'll be showing a video tape of Gamefreak director Junichi Masuda where he has a poster covered by a question mark and will be revealing it. Mostly likely he'll be comfiming 5th gen, why else would the head director of the main pokemon series will be doing there? ;]

 

[Mattman324]

Since apparently telling people not to put all their speculation eggs in one basket doesn't work, let's see some theories!

1) MORE TYPES: No. After GSC, no more types are necisary, those were only put in as a balancing effect. But not just for psychic: Dragon got attacks better than Dragon Rage in GSC, and in RBY, no types resisted them (because they hit for fixed damage). So it would make sense that Nintendo wouldn't add any more types: no more balance is needed.

2) MORE ATTACKS:

Salamence: DD/Outrage/Draco Meteor/Earthquake/Fire Blast/Aqua Tail.
Starmie: Rapid Spin/Hydro Pump/Thunderbolt/Ice Beam/Surf/Recover.
Scizor: Bullet Punch/U-turn/Bug Bite/Superpower/Pursuit/Quick Attack or Areal Ace.
Lucario: SD/Extreemspeed/Close Combat/Crunch/Ice Punch/Bullet Punch.

Yeah right.

3) MORE PER TEAM: Not a chance. Personally, I'd prefer an ingame function that also sticks 2 HM slaves that can't battle or be switched into the main team (unless you're at the PC) in your party, but for competitive purposes? Why change it?

4) NO PHYSICAL BLISSEY: Anyone else notice that Blissey is on the decline now? It would certainly help counter something if a physical Blissey existed... but it would have to be normal, and not something like Steel/Flying.

5) FOURTH GEN DESIGNS SUCKED!: Oh yeah, a ball of gas called Gastly is UBER IMAGINATIVE, but a freaking moai statue with an epic moustache is descusting. (btw, put a monocle on a probopass sprite. It'll change your views of it forever)

6) EVOLUTIONS IN GEN 4 ALL SUCKED: Yeah, you try using Rhydon or Magnaton in OU as apposed to Rhyperior or Magnazone. Tell me how that works out. The only different one is Pory2 and Z, but those are different... 2 is for anti-metagame purposes, and Z is for sweeping.

Now for some of my own!

- Pokemon destined to be jokes (Un-own, Luvdisk, Shuckle, maybe Farfy.) won't evolve. Hopefully, Magcargo will though, and FINALLY GET SOLID ROCK. Also, Absol and Torkoal maybe.

- A phisical electric attack that doesn't require a fist to use will come out. Luxray fans rejoice.

- Same with fire. Flareon and Entei get a lot of speculation because of them.

- Phsical hidden power. What, they pulled out a special Choice Band the gen after it came out!

- One pokemon will be claimed as "Completely broken", and turn out not to be (Early DP Garchomp anyone? Well, until the Yache berry incedent it wasn't).

- Garchomp and possibly SDless Latios will become OU.

- The early Normal/Flying type will be something like this on the food chain: Staraptor, Swellow, 5th gen, Dodrio, Fearow, Pidgeot, Farfetch'd, Chatot (Togekiss isn't on the list for obvious reasons.) It MIGHT be above Swellow, but I don't think we'll get another Staraptor.

- While everyone talks about "We won't be able to counter everything", a lot of current threats fall out because new pokemon (or old pokemon with enhancements) will rise.

- After Hyper offensive and stalling periods, the metagame will balance.


I think they're good predictions.

EDIT: I KNEW I'd forget one!

- Nintendo's push for the DS-i obseletes GBA games, Hoenn comes back.

 

[Wichu]

1. I did not say anything about it being definate. However, the fact that they are reserved does give a fair chance.

2.These were the only ones found so far, and they are three stones again, fitting in with DP and RSE. Because of this, many can agree that TOA is PROBABLE.

PokemonPlatinum.com was not owned by Nintendo until after Platinum came out. Also, there are several more URLs which redirect to Nintendo's site; try www.pokemonwhitegold.com. It's pretty obvious we won't be seeing a White Gold version; why should pokemonamethyst.com and pokemonopal.com indicate that we're getting an Amethyst and an Opal version?

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

PokemonPlatinum.com was not owned by Nintendo until after Platinum came out. Also, there are several more URLs which redirect to Nintendo's site; try www.pokemonwhitegold.com. It's pretty obvious we won't be seeing a White Gold version; why should pokemonamethyst.com and pokemonopal.com indicate that we're getting an Amethyst and an Opal version?

LOL! I would definitely buy Pokémon Cocaine.... er, White Gold.

 

[cantab]

6) EVOLUTIONS IN GEN 4 ALL SUCKED: Yeah, you try using Rhydon or Magnaton in OU as apposed to Rhyperior or Magnazone. Tell me how that works out.

Are you saying that they'll work almost as well, or something else?
And I can't speak for competitive, but Magmortar is one of my favourite 4th gen Pokemon on looks.

 

[lordkira]

Are you saying that they'll work almost as well, or something else?
And I can't speak for competitive, but Magmortar is one of my favourite 4th gen Pokemon on looks.

not to mention that electivire is awesome imo.
oh and the legends are awesome just incredibly overpowering in the anime.

 

[WarriorPrince]

Nice. I positive it is gen five.

There are usually 4 years between pokemon generatons, so this will be right on time.

 

[SagaciousSilence]

I came up with a way to improve the usefulness of Grass Pokemon:

Switching in a Grass Pokemon clears away Stealth Rocks in a similar fashion as Poison types clear away TSpikes. The logic behind this could be that Grass Pokemon are rooted into the ground and thus bring down the rocks, but then again GF didn't explain Poison types switching into TSpikes to us so that isn't very important.

From a competitive perspective, this would definitely bolster the usefulness of Grass Pokemon, making at least 1 Grass Pokemon a necessity to every team. This leaves only normal Spikes to be needing to be spun away, but at least Spikes aren't as rapidly devastating or type-discriminating to a team as SR is.

It's a shame GF doesn't pay more attention to the competitive metagame. It would be more logical to suit the competitive player, as the non-competitive player couldn't care less about little core mechanics just as long as he gets to play with his super-cool Raichu! *Sigh* If only someone from Smogon worked for GF, our intelligence could help their game out very much.

 

[Demoness]

I came up with a way to improve the usefulness of Grass Pokemon:

Switching in a Grass Pokemon clears away Stealth Rocks in a similar fashion as Poison types clear away TSpikes. The logic behind this could be that Grass Pokemon are rooted into the ground and thus bring down the rocks, but then again GF didn't explain Poison types switching into TSpikes to us so that isn't very important.

From a competitive perspective, this would definitely bolster the usefulness of Grass Pokemon, making at least 1 Grass Pokemon a necessity to every team. This leaves only normal Spikes to be needing to be spun away, but at least Spikes aren't as rapidly devastating or type-discriminating to a team as SR is.

It's a shame GF doesn't pay more attention to the competitive metagame. It would be more logical to suit the competitive player, as the non-competitive player couldn't care less about little core mechanics just as long as he gets to play with his super-cool Raichu! *Sigh* If only someone from Smogon worked for GF, our intelligence could help their game out very much.

so everyone will have a grass type on their team to just get rid of stleath rock? and i would assume that the poison type pokemon asorb the poison from the toxic spikes, thus making them usless

 

[The Pokemon Pimp]

I think what some people are forgetting is that Diamond and Pearl are four years old (seems newer because of Platinum I think). At least, that's what threw me off. This is pretty much pointing towards a new generation.

From a business perspective, Game Freak will defnitely not change anything to the point of not being a pokemon game anymore. Their formula is: a new trainer who obtains a Pokemon, gets gym badges and challenges the Elite 4, all the while catching Pokemon and fighting his/her rival and an evil team. That's been working (obviously) for the past 10+ years and has gotten them a ton of money, so why would they change it?

However, there will probably be a battle style change (like Natures, Physical/Special split, etc), simply because there's been one in every other generation. I also think that it isn't going to be something thrown in there for the sake of changing something. Think about it: Ghost moves like Shadow Ball being Physical, Hyper Beam being Physical, etc do not make sense, so they implemented a split between Special and Physical attacks. What I'm trying to say is that Game Freak isn't going to put in the option to have more than six Pokemon in a party, or have more than four moves, because it isn't really logical.

That being said, changing certain type effectiveness is more logical and so could happen. I cannot wait for the new generation though :P Cross your fingers for a physical Hidden Power!

 

[StarWizard]

Roserade would love to absorb both Stealth Rock and Toxic Spikes. Who needs a spinner? That idea is just silly.

Besides, it makes zero sense for Grass types to absorb Stealth Rock on a flavor basis alone. Just like the previous suggestion for Poison to become SE against Steel. I mean, the game already has enough silly things like DD Whiscash and pokemon without fists learning ___Punch.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

I came up with a way to improve the usefulness of Grass Pokemon:

Switching in a Grass Pokemon clears away Stealth Rocks in a similar fashion as Poison types clear away TSpikes. The logic behind this could be that Grass Pokemon are rooted into the ground and thus bring down the rocks, but then again GF didn't explain Poison types switching into TSpikes to us so that isn't very important.

From a competitive perspective, this would definitely bolster the usefulness of Grass Pokemon, making at least 1 Grass Pokemon a necessity to every team. This leaves only normal Spikes to be needing to be spun away, but at least Spikes aren't as rapidly devastating or type-discriminating to a team as SR is.

It's a shame GF doesn't pay more attention to the competitive metagame. It would be more logical to suit the competitive player, as the non-competitive player couldn't care less about little core mechanics just as long as he gets to play with his super-cool Raichu! *Sigh* If only someone from Smogon worked for GF, our intelligence could help their game out very much.

It's pretty funny how you're saying how much more intelligent competitive battlers are right after you said something completely ridiculous.

You know what, I think all Ice-type Pokemon should be immune to Dark-type moves because it gets colder when it gets dark. It would really make an Ice Pokemon a requirement on every team (let's ignore that a huge number of battlers already complain about how a Steel or two is basically required). Man, I should TOTALLY work for Game Freak, I'm such a genius.

 

[Deaga]

Except that Dark-type is the Evil type in Japan.

Don't be daft; it's been pretty clear ever since Gen 2 that compatibility is a big deal; when they've only just released their 5 newest, most updated battle systems on a brand new device, they're not going to throw all that away (nor risk people skipping their US purchases of HGSS in lieu of waiting for the latter) when they don't have to.

However, every generation added some mechanic that made it incompatible with the previous generation, battling-wise. You could still trade between the first two and transfer Pokémon from 3rd to 4th gen because the Pokémon themselves were compatible, but the generations were not. If some compatibility between 4th and 5th generation is to exist, I think it'll be of that kind: pokémon-wise, but not battling-wise.

Though I think expanding the number of pokémon / item / moves / whatever slots is unlikely, simply because it's always been the way they are. If Game Freak wanted to change those numbers, I think they would've done that some time in the past already. >_>

 

[M BLADE]

Gamefreak changing the type chart is unlikely... unfortunately. To me, it's me most needed change. To make some types suck less(Poison and Grass offensively for example) and some overpowering types being less dominant(Dragon offensively, dragon, steel and water defensively)

It would be nice if:

Poison hits water for SE
Less resists on grass attacks(what about at least Dragon, or maybe steel too? Make it neutral against those)
Grass should lose one of it's weaknesses(this one is impossible... flying? Maybe Ice)
Ice resisting Dragon should be the priority.



About a physical Blissey: no.
Gamefreak created Intimidate and lots of reliable physical walls with recovery(Slowbro? Hippowdon? Skarmory? Miltank? Hell, even Quagsire... while special has to rely on Blissey or Latias... maybe Slowking and Milotic) to compensate for the lack of a physical Blissey.


Oh yes: another "advantage" of grass types is that they are lileky to learn Swords Dance. Of all grass types until now, only Cherrim and Wormadam can't learn it (and they are tiny little pokes, so that's excepted)

 

[frogbandit]

5th gen, same year as HGSS is released? Seems a bit early, but thats just me. Still excited though. Getting new pokemon is always fun :)

 

[Sixonesix]

5th gen, same year as HGSS is released? Seems a bit early, but thats just me. Still excited though. Getting new pokemon is always fun :)

Keep in mind that it's the year after HGSS was released in Japan. And most likely the new game wouldn't be released elsewhere until spring 2011 anyway.