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Sticky Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire
- Thread starter DHR-107
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CrushinDefeat
Defeat me if you can... Survive if I let you!
Yeah at a much larger scale in the new games.
Actually, in the video trailer pokemons youtube released, if you look closely at the box art, it says, "Playable in 2D, some parts will be playable in 3D"
So yeah, no full 3d is a bummer
What i meant was that i hope these changes in looks that gamefreak is going out of their way to point out, have a deeper meaning to the story than just to build hype.
I'm probably misunderstanding you, but I think it's safe to assume it's just the same as in XY; the useless, headache-inducing 3D function of the 3DS isn't available outside of battle and certain places. It's not like it won't be 100% 3D models.
Again, allow me to disagree, at least partially. So Xerneas has two forms with just aesthetical changes. But apart from mere color changes, it's only the crystals at the base of its horns that get spread all over it. There's nothing that wasn't there before and suddenly was there (like the eye-catching symbol on Kyogre's head). What's more: Xerneas has always been like this. Having two slightly different forms is a part of Xerneas from the very beginning. This doesn't apply to Groudon and Kyogre. We've even seen them in Generation VI after Pokébank and nope, nothing has changed.
I'm just mentioning this to make this point: it's not the first time we have a cover legendary change its body in a new game. So far it has always been a new form. According to Serebii's translation of the e-mail sent to the Daisuki club, they're even using the same kind of language to refer to them (it would be nice if you could find a link to check it out yourself, since it would be great to have the opinion of someone who actually knows some japanese on the matter). You've got to admit it's more likely this new form isn't just aesthetic, following the pattern they've established so far, than just some new look to go with the "breathtaking" new generation.
I'd personally would find it really weird if Game Freak ended up saying something like this: hey everybody, do you remember those neat looking Kyogre and Groudon in the box-art everyone has been talking about? Well, that's all there is to it: they look neat. That would be one of the closest things to a troll on the part of the game developers.
And no, I don't think Game Freak has ever attempted to troll its Fan Base. It's the community that feels trolled because some things don't live up to their expectation or just aren't the way they think it should be. I agree some things in the Pokémon main games just don't make any sense (okay, we got Flare Blitz Flareon, but what about Slack Off Snorlax? >.<), but it's not like they're deliberately trying to troll us! Come guys, would you really go ahead and piss off your customers? I think most of the time it's the community that gets carried away. Take the whole speculation about a new region. Some people took it for a real thing based mostly on the first trailer and the guy at a hotel in Kalos. They just ignored the most logical fact: They wouldn't introduce a new region in a game carrying Ruby and Sapphire's name. That would've been nuts: Welcome to Omega Ruby a game with a new region, new gym leaders, new Pokémon on every route and a Groudon just to justify the name. If the name of the game were Ruby 2, then a new region would've been somewhat more plausible. Of course there were other arguments like the fact it was a teaser trailer which is prone to using flowery language and the fact it is indeed a new world for the game's target audience, but the first argument is the most compelling one. Don't overthink it, if it's a new Ruby version, then it's got to take place in Hoenn. That's what a sensible friend told me when I told him of all the speculation on the first days.
The same simple logic applies here: They got different looking legendaries in the box-art. Just like Giratina-O in Platinum, just like Kyurem-B und Kyurem-W in BW2. The most logical thing is those are new forms. You'd actually need some pretty strong evidence against it to think otherwise and not the other way around. And so far we've even had some hints pointing towards those new forms.
But I acknowledge there are two facts that kind of go against my presumption: a) both Giratina and Kyurem have had far more radical changes than Groudon and Kyogre. I still think the changes we saw in the box-art are enough to indicate a new form (with some competitive differences), though. And b) Game Freak has been breaking lots of patterns this generation (Mega Evolutions, no new legendary trio, etc). In the end, I think we're dealing with new forms but I do see reasons for skepticism (you did manage to dampen my enthusiasm after all xD ).
Oh and, most importantly, I just would like to say this is all intended as a friendly discussion. Just saying in case you get a wrong idea from me quoting your posts and addressing your arguments over and over. It's just that I find them really reasonable and they made me rethink my assumptions, so I'd like to share my conclusions with the community and possibly make even you too see things differently :) Also, as stated before, that's all just speculation and educated guesses, so we can't really know what's the deal with those new forms until we get a clear announcement.
Quick little update on the status of the games; One of my girl-friends who works at GameStop mentioned that they have a set release date for November 1st. They aren't always perfectly accurate, but the last few times GameStop made an assumption on a release date for Pokémon, it was a strong indicator of when the game was actually coming out...even though they seem to enjoy releasing games a day or two before that month's issue of CoroCoro comes out...an that issue has a five page spread answering all of the big questions...
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One important change since the originals came out that may or may not be considered by GF regarding the new forms. A big part of the story is that Groudon causes an endless drought, clearing up the water, while Kyogre causes an endless rainstorm, increasing the ocean. In recent games, Drizzle and Drought have been changed to last a set amount of turns. So why would we need Megas of these pokemon? Maybe (I know this is a total stretch and unlikely) they'll have new abilities that either A) Create Rain and sunlight again but until the weather changes or B) are the same ability that will extend the current weather for more than 5 turns.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
I'm ok with friendly discussion, but I just don't think your points prove anything. It'd be awesome if they got new forms, and I think there's a decent chance that they will, but I think the most likely answer is that the cover art forms are just like zerneas's active form, a cool looking thing that appears in special situations, but doesn't have any affect other than appearance. The lack of physical differences, ORAS's status as a remake rather than a new title (and therefore less likely to have plot justification for new forms like giratina), and the precedent of zerneas make me think that GF is just trying to get free hype
I don't think "extra time" really matters considering they probably have been working on this for a while. They had the 3D technology for making XY and they already have the region and the storyline, so a lot of the time used to make a new game is cut down by a lot. They could get more free time to develop something like that instead.
Although I doubt we're going to see following Pokemon anymore.
No. Drought and Drizzle are the only sun- and rain-inducing abilities, respectively, that we will see. I can definitely say this for a fact. Why, if your theory turns out to be true, would GameFreak change the mechanics to last a small amount of turns only to change them again with some obscure ability? What makes it so special that they HAD to change it for everything BUT two Pokemon? If you think it's a way to get money, it's a pretty poor marketing idea. If they DID do that, they would release the Pokemon as event-only and hand the out sometime in the year, but not in a main title Pokemon game. It's asinine.
I can kind of defend what Shockwave is saying. Game Freak isn't one to remove skills and traits entirely from certain pokemon. Drought and Drizzle were first introduced as exclusive to our legendaries until there was a more readily available Pokémon to auto-summon each weather in gen5, so they kind of lost their thematic importance. What we can say for certain is that Politoed and Ninetales will never lose access to Drought and Drizzle, but GF may have felt that they made (all of) the weathers too accessible.
When Drought and Drizzle got nerfed, Groudon and Kyogre also got nerfed. However, since they were originally designed to have an indefinite length of time that either sun or rain would be active after they enter a battle, they'd need a new mechanic to compensate for Drought and Drizzle getting dummed down for the sake of the other Pokémon with auto-weather. Hence, in their new forms, they may be given new versions of Drought and Drizzle made purposefully to be broken. While Game Freak will never taketh away, they're certainly in love with gifting their creations with cool new toys.
I honestly don't think that was going through GameFreak's mind at all. If they didn't want other Pokemon to "steal their thunder," they wouldn't have given it to them in the first place. They nerfed it and I don't know why, but they're not going to buff it just because they might think the Pokemon are sad that they don't have auto-weather anymore. If they didn't want to nerf weather, they wouldn't have.
CoroCoro, Daisuki Club and GetTV have all compared both current and new cover artworks; while CoroCoro didn't say much besides showing the artworks (I think), Daisuki used a special expression that has only been used for Megas (MegaMewtwoY) and formes (Rotom-App, Black/White Kyurem), but never for forms (Keldeo-R, Xerneas), while GetTV had Shokotan explicitely ~wondering~ if the cover legends were Megas.
These two aren't like Xerneas because its "colored form" isn't even a form per se, but much like K/G's "pulsating markings" or Resh/Zek's "energy tails", with the difference that Xerneas looks like that even in its official artwork. If it were blue in the artwork, the pre-release info would certainly say something in the lines of "when in battle, Xerneas shows its ~true colors~ omg", like Resh/Zek/BWrem's "Overdrive mode". But no, they simply didn't bother showing blue Xerneas and we only discovered it while playing. In fact, I don't even know why it even exists, but fine. If GF wanted to go the Xerneas route with ORAS, they'd simply have K/G in the box cover with their pulsating markings.
Do you see the difference? In one scenario, the pokémon look like A most of the time but have some aesthetic difference B in battle that appears sometimes, and this B is revealed in pre-release. In the other, the pokémon look like B already, but we aren't informed B is B and that there is an A. Meanwhile, any pokémon that get a real forme/Mega C has it ~shrouded in mystery~ at first during pre-release but later informed in a cristalline way, clearly calling it a forme/Mega, possibly even detailing how to get it. Resh/Zek were in the first scenario. Xerneas was in the second. MegaMewtwoY was in the third, and it seems to me these cover artworks are following the latter's steps.
We still haven't got any 100% reveal on them, but I can't see how they can NOT be formes/Megas. They never even suggested "Overdrive mode" was a new forme, they never dared saying Xerneas would show its "true strength" in battle or whatever. Not even K/G's markings got any kind of special hype back then (iirc). Now we have two legendary pokémon with two special stones for them, that clearly changed appearance to the point their bodies are different, in the middle of a generation that has introduced a mechanic in which special stones make pokémon change appearance, with an official TV show for the franchise suggesting they might go down that route too, and we're somehow expecting them to be artistic renditions for the boxarts ?__?
Besides, regarding the "Megas change appearance too much!" argument... Compare old and new Kyogres' body colors, eyes, and tails. Now tell me Charizard, Blastoise and Kangaskhan seriously change that much when in Mega, to the point new Kyogre couldn't be considered a Mega too. And that's without taking its new markings into account.
I really wish I could say I missed this kind of discussion, but nope
These two aren't like Xerneas because its "colored form" isn't even a form per se, but much like K/G's "pulsating markings" or Resh/Zek's "energy tails", with the difference that Xerneas looks like that even in its official artwork. If it were blue in the artwork, the pre-release info would certainly say something in the lines of "when in battle, Xerneas shows its ~true colors~ omg", like Resh/Zek/BWrem's "Overdrive mode". But no, they simply didn't bother showing blue Xerneas and we only discovered it while playing. In fact, I don't even know why it even exists, but fine. If GF wanted to go the Xerneas route with ORAS, they'd simply have K/G in the box cover with their pulsating markings.
Do you see the difference? In one scenario, the pokémon look like A most of the time but have some aesthetic difference B in battle that appears sometimes, and this B is revealed in pre-release. In the other, the pokémon look like B already, but we aren't informed B is B and that there is an A. Meanwhile, any pokémon that get a real forme/Mega C has it ~shrouded in mystery~ at first during pre-release but later informed in a cristalline way, clearly calling it a forme/Mega, possibly even detailing how to get it. Resh/Zek were in the first scenario. Xerneas was in the second. MegaMewtwoY was in the third, and it seems to me these cover artworks are following the latter's steps.
We still haven't got any 100% reveal on them, but I can't see how they can NOT be formes/Megas. They never even suggested "Overdrive mode" was a new forme, they never dared saying Xerneas would show its "true strength" in battle or whatever. Not even K/G's markings got any kind of special hype back then (iirc). Now we have two legendary pokémon with two special stones for them, that clearly changed appearance to the point their bodies are different, in the middle of a generation that has introduced a mechanic in which special stones make pokémon change appearance, with an official TV show for the franchise suggesting they might go down that route too, and we're somehow expecting them to be artistic renditions for the boxarts ?__?
Besides, regarding the "Megas change appearance too much!" argument... Compare old and new Kyogres' body colors, eyes, and tails. Now tell me Charizard, Blastoise and Kangaskhan seriously change that much when in Mega, to the point new Kyogre couldn't be considered a Mega too. And that's without taking its new markings into account.
I really wish I could say I missed this kind of discussion, but nope
If you ask me, regardless of whether or not there are new abilities, I think the story battles with Kyogre and Groudon will have permanent weather. I refuted a post many pages back that said non-permanent weather would ruin the story, but for the battles themselves I do think it would be kinda weird if the weather were to die after 5 turns, even though in the story the weather is there until Groudon or Kyogre is defeated.
This won't have to change any game mechanics though, aren't there already overworld weather conditions that create a permanent weather in-battle? I haven't had any battles longer than 5 turns against a wild Pokemon in rain in XY but I think weather is permanent if it's an overworld condition. If that's the case, they can just do that in the battles with Kyogre and Groudon to give permanent weather. This removes the inconsistency with the story weather being permanent while not having any new abilities.
As for how likely new abilities are, I don't think you can make a strong case either way. In the end we don't really know what Game Freak is thinking.
This won't have to change any game mechanics though, aren't there already overworld weather conditions that create a permanent weather in-battle? I haven't had any battles longer than 5 turns against a wild Pokemon in rain in XY but I think weather is permanent if it's an overworld condition. If that's the case, they can just do that in the battles with Kyogre and Groudon to give permanent weather. This removes the inconsistency with the story weather being permanent while not having any new abilities.
As for how likely new abilities are, I don't think you can make a strong case either way. In the end we don't really know what Game Freak is thinking.
There is also always the bullshit sorry excuse from DP for Cyrus giving you the Master Ball instead of using it to catch Dialga/Palkia: a pokéball restricts the power of a pokémon, and he wants all the power of the space/time ruler for himself. The same could happen with K/G: they just woke up, they're too close to the Red/Blue Orb, they're berserk; thus, their Drizzle/Drought will be permanent until they're either caught or calmed down.
(and this is probably when/why they'll change their appearance heh)
Mario With Lasers' whole post makes an excellent point, but I'd like to quote this part in particular as a reason for why new forms are the most logical explanation and therefore the more likely possibility. But you're right, I'm not really proving anything. No one can until Nintendo makes an announcement or the games are out. For now we're just trying to speculate in a reasonable way.
Either way, it seems like people need to be reminded that no new abilities, Pokémon species or moves have ever been introduced in the middle of a generation. This is due to compatibility issues with the "pioneer games" of the respective generations. If it doesn't exist in the pioneer games (in this case, X/Y), it won't be able to communicate with them. If a Superdrizzle Kyogre was sent into battle against an X/Y cartridge, the X/Y cartridge wouldn't be able to recognize the ability "Superdrizzle", and things would go haywire. Trading would lead to an even bigger problem (possibly along the lines of a Bad Egg). The "pioneer games" are fine as long as the ability is something they recognize, but anything entirely new would confuse the heck out of them and probably crash them.
I think it is, however, possible to take an existing ability and change its mechanics. Say, changing the damage dealt by Rough Skin or adding to the immunities provided by Wonder Guard mid-generation. Then, in battle, the data from the new game would temporarily override the definition from the pioneer game and modify it for that battle only. When trading, the ability would use the old or new definition depending on what game it is currently on (such as happened with Hypnosis in Gen. IV).
In theory, this would allow for the addition of new abilities in same-generation games, by taking an unused ability from the pioneer game (such as Cacophony from Ruby/Sapphire) and modify it heavily when traded or used in battle against a "third game" cartride. Pokémon with the Ability in question would be able to work in the pioneer game without crashing it, but its effect would be wildly different between games. This would make a boring affair in trading. Imagine the disappointment of a kid whose friend with a newer game has a Pokémon with the ability to set up permaweather, and he's willing to trade it over. Then, when it arrives, the ability does not summon permaweather, but makes the Pokémon immune to sound instead. Cue tears and rage.
So unless there is a pair of abilities hidden in the X/Y files, that we haven't found yet, there will not be new abilities in ORAS. I can virtually guarantee it. Technically speaking, it isn't impossible that Drizzle and Drought will be reset to their old mechanics, but there are other reasons to believe they won't (as outlined by others above me). Hackers have found a fair few moves, however, which might show up. GameFreak plans in advance, you see, and leave the data they plan to use later in the pioneer games, so that they will be compatible all over the generation once released.
I think it is, however, possible to take an existing ability and change its mechanics. Say, changing the damage dealt by Rough Skin or adding to the immunities provided by Wonder Guard mid-generation. Then, in battle, the data from the new game would temporarily override the definition from the pioneer game and modify it for that battle only. When trading, the ability would use the old or new definition depending on what game it is currently on (such as happened with Hypnosis in Gen. IV).
In theory, this would allow for the addition of new abilities in same-generation games, by taking an unused ability from the pioneer game (such as Cacophony from Ruby/Sapphire) and modify it heavily when traded or used in battle against a "third game" cartride. Pokémon with the Ability in question would be able to work in the pioneer game without crashing it, but its effect would be wildly different between games. This would make a boring affair in trading. Imagine the disappointment of a kid whose friend with a newer game has a Pokémon with the ability to set up permaweather, and he's willing to trade it over. Then, when it arrives, the ability does not summon permaweather, but makes the Pokémon immune to sound instead. Cue tears and rage.
So unless there is a pair of abilities hidden in the X/Y files, that we haven't found yet, there will not be new abilities in ORAS. I can virtually guarantee it. Technically speaking, it isn't impossible that Drizzle and Drought will be reset to their old mechanics, but there are other reasons to believe they won't (as outlined by others above me). Hackers have found a fair few moves, however, which might show up. GameFreak plans in advance, you see, and leave the data they plan to use later in the pioneer games, so that they will be compatible all over the generation once released.
I still think that the greatest trendy saying is ADULT GAME
"I tried to teach my pokemon all about ADULT GAME but it's not really working"
Would love to see t-sayings return but that would mean that the whole damn Feebas in any six tiles will come back too... :(
(Still, at least you can transfer the bugger now)
While that IS true, you have to remember that Nintendo does do patches to games now and DLC. It wouldn't be hard to have people download free DLC allowing them to connect with the new games that adds in the new abilities and mega forms. Remember, while hackers found changes to Latias and Latios (assumed by some to be for this game), nothing was found for Groudon and Kyogre, and yet here that is. So while it hasn't happened before, that may have been because of technical limitations which are not present anymore.
I might have agreed with you, if it wasn't for the fact that lots of stuff was found hidden in X/Y's code, ready to be used. Why go to the trouble of adding extra Vivillion patterns, a legendary "trio", moves such as Thousand Arrows or Hyperspace Hole and extra Mega Stones to the games' code at launch, if it was so easy to add it in later? Why not just hold everything back, then, instead of putting half of the planned content on the cartridges from the get-go?
Remember that GameFreak plan out their release schedule long ahead of time. Possibly two to three years, or even more. Approximate release dates for the Gen. VII games are probably set already, even though the games haven't even begun predesign yet. When X/Y was coded, GameFreak knew ORAS would follow. Perhaps ORAS wasn't planned out to minute detail yet, but everything that needed to be compatible with XY was probably set in stone long before XY's "code freeze". GameFreak knew new games would come, and knew what kind of content they could add to them without breaking X/Y. Conversely, ORAS (and/or "Z") would have been far enough into the design phase that its new content could be made compatible with X/Y before X/Y shipped.
Patches and free DLC is okay to fix problems, it has been used for that before, but it's a totally different matter when adding content to games such as the Pokémon series. New content that XY isn't forwards-compatible with could lead to game-breaking problems upon trade/battle unless both cartridges were fully updated. Keep in mind that a great number of handheld consoles are never connected to the Internet, and that local ("school yard") uplink remains a core feature of Pokémon games. Some kids don't have the know-how to hook up their 3DS to Wi-fi, others do. Not everybody would manage to update their games, and some of those who could would inevitably meet some of those who couldn't. What would happen if a kid tried to trade DLC content over to an un-updated game? Blank screens and sad faces. Also note that the Infrared communications of a 3DS has too low capacity/reliability for an updated game to transfer the necessary data to a non-updated one.
GameFreak's old model (which I think is in full use still) is to make the "pioneer games" forward-compatible with content planned to be released later. By including all necessary information on the cartridges for the "pioneer games", they can communicate with later games without problems, and without needing to update. Hence we have code and models for Pokémon such as Volcanion already, ready to use whenever Volcanion is officially released. Then it will be a trivial matter to add a Volcanion to any cartridge without the need for updates.
Meanwhile, new formes and modified mechanics already work smoothly with future games, and have done so for years. D/P players could fight Shaymin-S without problems, since the games were "convinced" that the opponent was just an ordinary Shaymin, albeit with a different typing, ability, stats and movepool than the Shaymin it already knew. The D/P player saw Shaymin's usual sprite, since Shaymin-S and Shaymin is the same species of Pokémon. Everything that opponent Shaymin did, could also be done on D/P. No unknown moves, abilities or other shenanigans at work. If the Shaymin was to be traded to D/P, it would turn up as a quite ordinary Shaymin. I presume the same will be the case with X/Y, whenever Groudon-O and Kyogre-A is linked up to an old cartridge. And should the new formes happen to know moves such as Thousand Waves or Steam Eruption, well, X/Y knows how to deal with those already.
Cobraroll, do you think it would be viable to introduce new mega evolutions (like mega Swampert/me Sceptile) given the scenario you described above?
Cobraroll already addressed this. The kind of "schoolyard" trades he mentioned are often conducted by people without access to Wi-Fi, thus preventing them from updating. Doing something like this would prevent those people, a major segment of GF's customers, from trading at all.
I made a post earlier in the thread, regarding this. Back then, the answer was "maybe", and I guess it still is.
From a technical standpoint, battling against new Mega Evolutions shouldn't be that much different than Formes, in that the "pioneer game" will display the model of the base form of the Mega Evolved Pokémon. The games are evidently capable of handling opponent Pokémon changing stats and abilities mid-battle (after all, Mega Evolution does this already). If it is possible in X/Y to "force" an opposing Pokémon to Mega-Evolve through hacking, have a Mega Stone icon appear at its HP bar, and swap its stats and abilities, it should be possible to fight newly added Mega Evolutions just as easily as existing ones. But if X/Y are coded so that only certain Pokémon are allowed to Mega Evolve, I wouldn't be so sure.
The Mega Stones themselves present a little problem, though. After all, there is no Swampertite in X/Y, and the games have no idea of what such an item would even do if hacked in. If there is a Swampertite in ORAS, it won't be tradeable to X/Y. How the games would handle this, I'm not sure. As far as I can remember, holdable items have always been tradeable between games of the same generation, and as of now, Mega Stones are holdable items just like any ol' Choice Band or Leftovers. There are no restrictions as to which Pokémon can hold the Mega Stones. Some mechanics would have to be altered for new Mega Stones to be present in ORAS and not in X/Y. It could be as simple as refusing to start a trade as long as there is an "illegal" Mega Stone on one of your party Pokémon, but then again trades give access to the PC now too, so I'm not really sure how that would work at all. Refusing you to deposit Mega Stone-holding Pokémon in the PC doesn't seem that viable to me...
In short: I think the games have no problems handling new Mega Evolutions, but Mega Stones puzzle me a little. I guess a theoretical solution would be for X/Y to recognise an item as an illegal Mega Stone, display it as simply "Mega Stone" or something on the Summary screen and refuse to trade a Pokémon holding it, but that solution would require that feature to be implemented in X/Y already. If it isn't, then I seriously have no idea.
Disregarding the technical issues, though, I see no reason why GameFreak shouldn't include new Mega Evolutions in ORAS. For instance, they have always tried to balance the starters, to some extent. If only Blaziken has a Mega Evolution, it would seriously skew that balance. Of course, it might be that Blazikenite isn't available in the game either... though that would be far from an optimal way to re-establish that balance.
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