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1. Atsuko Nishida didn't only make Pikachu, she also made the original Starters! Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise already existed, so Nishida worked backwards. Thinking of popular pets such as frogs, lizards, and baby turtles, she made the Starters so players would be surprised they evolved into their final forms (... which was sort of ruined since they used the Starter's final forms as the mascots of the Gen I games...).
2. Thoughts on what makes Pikachu cute and their favorite Pokemon:
Ken Sugimori thinks it's because parts of it look cool, cute, and strong. Favorite is Gengar, also has a preference to Clefairy.
Koji Nishino thinks it's the proportion of Pikachu's eyes, it's chubbiness (wonder if he doesn't like the slimming down it has gone through), and tiny limbs. Favorites are Clefairy and Snorlax.
Atsuko Nishida thinks it's the cheek pouches. Favorite is Charizard ().
3. I might be misunderstanding what's being said here but, when asked about Pokemon GO's popularity, Sugimori said they try designing each new game to attract more players but you can only draw in so many people into an RPG. They were surprised GO reached such a wide range of people... and thinking it may be thanks to the simple designs of the Gen I Pokemon...
... Okay, MAYBE that has something to do with it... OR maybe it has to do with Pokemon being a 20+ year old franchise at that point and many kids who played the original games are now adults, even if they stopped playing Pokemon. Also GO I don't think counts as an RPG, it's a really simple game you can do, well, on the go. So even a non-fan can play the game without ever needing to play the core series. It's why you're making Let's Go, to try and convert the GO players into core series players.
4. When asked if they anticipate anything for Pikachu in the future:
Nishino: “I think Pikachu is already working hard enough! There are many other cute Pokémon besides Pikachu in the Pokémon series, so I would like for them to get some attention, too.”
3. I might be misunderstanding what's being said here but, when asked about Pokemon GO's popularity, Sugimori said they try designing each new game to attract more players but you can only draw in so many people into an RPG. They were surprised GO reached such a wide range of people... and thinking it may be thanks to the simple designs of the Gen I Pokemon...
... Okay, MAYBE that has something to do with it... OR maybe it has to do with Pokemon being a 20+ year old franchise at that point and many kids who played the original games are now adults, even if they stopped playing Pokemon. Also GO I don't think counts as an RPG, it's a really simple game you can do, well, on the go. So even a non-fan can play the game without ever needing to play the core series. It's why you're making Let's Go, to try and convert the GO players into core series players.
Not necessarily. Junichi Masuda revealed in a recent interview that Let's Go! is meant to be a Pokemon game that anyone can enjoy. If it pulls in some of the Go crowd, great, but it's not specifically made for them.
Not necessarily. Junichi Masuda revealed in a recent interview that Let's Go! is meant to be a Pokemon game that anyone can enjoy. If it pulls in some of the Go crowd, great, but it's not specifically made for them.
Yes, a game anyone can enjoy... because Pokemon GO drew in people who aren't normal Pokemon players. Anyone can play the game, anyone can play any Pokemon game, but Let's Go is specifically targeting GO players (they're not excluding anyone, but the game has features made specifically made to function with GO). They're targeting the general GO player who either plays the core series already, played the core series in the past but stopped after a certain gen, and those who never played the core series but since GO has given them so many extra Pokemon they'll be going into the game with an advantage. They're also targeting GO players with families, specifically those who have a younger brother/cousin or a kid of their own; they can help their younger family member/kid by transferring the Pokemon they catch in GO while they're out and about.
She's having none of your crap. Considering we usually talk about Dex entries being unrealistic or creepy, it's nice to highlight the writers' sense of humor as well.
honestly i'm down for a re-imagining of pmd1 (something discussed on the OI discord some time ago) where the Ninetales at the top of Mt. Freeze is Alolan Ninetales. Not only does it work thematically but I can totally see that Ninetales being like "yeah you're not the one in the myth, go find the cause elsewhere, bye"
I don't know why but somehow the fact that we can evolve a standard-ish lotus pad mon into a dancing mexican cactus water plant with a sombrero provides me with an irrational yet incredibly deep satisfaction.
I liked Togepi for being a silly and yet serious cry baby.
It can be so careless, free, and brave, but it can also be so silly and scared that it didn’t have to say more than it’s own name in various ways to be an important factor of Misty having a role.
By the time Togepi left, Misty had served her purpose and never saw Ash again. Togepi rebirthed her value to the series, and when it said goodbye, so did her character.
I count it’s big role, as “little” due to its size. So there. “Little things, that I like about Pokémon.”
pokemon mystery dungeon's story gets a little too much love i think. and by that, i mean that it steals the spotlight too much from the mechanics.
note: will be covering pmd explorers of time since that's the one that has me sucked in yet again rn
you don't really get to see many of the coolest mechanics during the main story/postgame, because the game mostly railroads you into using only the starter/partner and the enemies are pretty basic. but when you train up a totally new exploration team and play postgame dungeons, it feels really cool.
the team i'm using is kingler/venomoth/breloom/rotom, each around level 60. it can beat most dungeons outside of zero isle.
first off, i want to talk about iq. i've probably talked about this before, but it's honestly a really cool mechanic and i'm really sad they took it out of the later games.
basic idea of iq is that there are these uncommon items called "gummis" that increase your iq stat if you eat them. each type has a corresponding gummi that increases its iq more than usual. for example, if chikorita eats a grass gummi, its iq would go up more than if it ate a white gummi.
as a mon's iq goes up, it gets miscellaneous stat boosts, but it also gets these things called "iq skills". mons are split into about eight different groups, with each group getting some unique skills.
this really helps the mons feel unique. kingler restores some pp with each new floor and can use ranged attacks through teammates. breloom has boosted attack and accuracy, but at the cost of evasion and defense. venomoth can sniff out the amount of items on each floor (kinda useless but still cool). rotom...still has 0 iq because the purple and yellow gummis are darkness exclusive. ok that's bad game design
next let's talk about exclusive items. these are pretty annoying to get, so i don't like them much, but they're really cool when you do get them.
about a third of the mons in the game (pretty sure the other exclusive items were added in sky) have their own set of exclusive items. let's talk about the mechanics first
basically every time you kill a mon in a dungeon, there's a chance it will drop a box item. after you complete the dungeon, you can pay a small fee to get the box opened. some contain uncommon items like sitrus berry, reviver seed, and max elixir, but most contain exclusive items.
these items have names like "gar-claw" (garchomp claw) and "pichu card". each pokemon has two of these one-star (stars are rarity) items. for example, cherrim has the cherrim dew and the cherrim card. if you collect both of them, you get to trade it for a two-star item. if you have the two-star item as well as both one-star items, you can get the three-star item.
there are also three-star items that are legendary exclusive. these are special because there's no trading you need to get them, and they're harder to get, usually found in a key chamber instead of random boxes.
the one and two star items are usually pretty bad, only giving the mon a small boost to its stats. but the three star items are MAD BROKEN.
pretty sure lots of them give them an immunity to one of their weakness, like pretty sure charizard basically gets water absorb
ho-oh gets the rainbow veil which basically gives it magic bounce
dialga gets the time shield which "halves the damage it takes from hostile action" yeah that's balanced
rayquaza gets the skyhigh veil, which LETS IT ATTACK TWICE IN ONE TURN UNDER CLEAR WEATHER????? POKEMON MYSTERY DUNGEON: DIRECTED BY MICHAEL BAY
unfortunately there are no exclusive items for the mons on my team, but that doesn't matter because there are exclusive items for entire types!!! the pink silk, for example, boosts the attack and defense of poison types. the only problem with this is that the silk items are typically key chamber exclusive. and don't even get me started on the dusts, they're random mission exclusive and it sucks
anyway the cool thing about exclusive items is that they provide interesting and unique buffs to mons, but at the same time they're hard to get. that's one of the things i like about pmd: it's not easy to 100%, although you always feel like you're making progress.
one last thing i want to talk about is all the BROKEN MOVES AND MECHANICS
in retrospect, this kind of shows the game's lack of balance which is probably a bad thing, but it's a ton more fun than "the boss's bad status condition can be healed in fewer turns!"
SPORE HITS EVERYONE IN THE ROOM
SILVER WIND AND OMINOUS WIND HIT EVERYONE IN THE ROOM, AND HAVE A CHANCE TO BOOST FOR EVERY MON THEY HIT
multi hit moves are TERRIBLY balanced. you know how in the main series, each hit is weaker than a normal attack?? well here each hit is the SAME POWER as a normal attack but LESS ACCURATE. I SAW BRELOOM OHKO A GIRATINA BOSS WITH A LUCKY 5 HIT BULLET SEED. THIS IS NOT OK. also it's important to note that bullet seed and pin missile are ranged attacks. ranged + multi hit is just as broken as it sounds
FLOATING GHOST TYPES CAN WALK THROUGH WALLS. THEY CAN HIT POKEMON OUTSIDE OF THE WALL WHILE BEING IMMUNE TO MOST ATTACKS. (you can't abuse this though because it drains your belly super fast)
UNBURDEN LETS YOU ATTACK TWICE AS LONG AS YOU'RE NOT HOLDING AN ITEM (swift swim/chlorophyll do the same in their appropriate weather)
CONFUSION CAUSES YOU TO MOVE AND ATTACK IN RANDOM DIRECTIONS. THERE ARE EIGHT DIRECTIONS. CONFUSION GIVES YOUR ATTACKS A 1/8 CHANCE OF HITTING
freeze is actually balanced!!! it stops you from doing anything, but also makes you invulnerable to most moves (you can still be hit by fire moves, but they thaw you).
pitfall trap sends you to the next level down (bad in tower style dungeons but good when you're going downward). if a teammate falls down, THEY DIE INSTANTLY. WHY
PERISH SONG IS DUMB. it has really low accuracy, but it targets EVERYONE ON THE FLOOR. unless you have a heal seed or the stairs are within 3 steps, you die if you get hit. luckily users are confined to a couple of dungeons
bosses are not immune to ohko moves. once i hit on the first try and was like "ok"
pretty sure nightmare actually causes sleep in addition to dealing damage. this is nice because it sucks otherwise
deoxys randomly becomes a new form each time you reach a new floor. i mean it's cool but huh??
anyway these games are amazing even though there's literally no gameplay diversity lol. really hope they make a new one while bringing back some of this stuff.
Something I like with SM/USUM is the bunch of silly moments that you can come across during the story.
Previous titles were mostly serious, with a clear menace established early, the local Professor sending you on a scientific quest to catch'em all, etc. All in all, there weren't many funny moments in previous titles (or a least not many that I remember).
In Sun&Moon, you get Prof. Kukui and Team Skull in almost each of their appearances, but also Lana's trial, Mallow's recipe, that damn Hiker in the Fire Trial, Hau's reaction to Lusamine's age, Gladion's "get out" (though this one may not have been intentional), Ilima completely ignoring the Skull Grunts at the beginning of the game...
This game is intentionally more relaxed and I for one really like these little humorous touches sprinkled here and there.
I like how you get to see the silhouettes of the legendaries in US/UM before battling them. Especially when it comes to the ones that appear in the Green Wormholes, they are standing on the hill in front of you before you get to battle them. That's just so cool.
A very minor thing which I'm not sure if it counts, but I like this: Looking at the water that's under the opening to the Ultra Wormhole at the Altar in Gen 7 feels like looking up at the night sky, or down at a reflection of it. It is as if you are looking down into space. At least it feels that way to me, don't know if anyone else feels the same way.
I like it when minor NPCs in the games makes references to Pokedex entries, in terms of how their Pokemon work. Two examples I can think of are from B2/W2. There's a worker in Twist Mountain who mentions that his Sigilyph always wants to fly in the same direction, but he doesn't know why. This is a reference to Sigilyph being a guardian of an ancient city, as stated in several of its Pokedex entries. Another one is from a School Kid in the Celestial Tower. She retreats to the Pokemon Center in Mistralton after you beat her, saying that she felt burned out after the battle. Her Pokemon is a Litwick, which absorbs the life force of people according to the Pokedex, so it was probably the cause of her burnout. There's probably more but those two stood out to me.
I like when there are puns in the Pokedex entries. For example, the entry for Bounsweet in Ultra Moon: "It tries to resist being swallowed by a bird Pokémon by spinning the sepals on its head. It's usually a fruitless attempt." Love it. There are others too but this was the main one I could remember.
I want to talk more about things I really like even if they aren't my top favorites. This time, a certain game pair. X and Y. These games were just so much fun to play and I spent a surprisingly large amount of time on them. I think they are really good games. From the main series Pokemon games that have been released for the 3DS, they are my favorites. They are also my third favorite games in the series on the whole (or second favorites, depending on how you count). I won't deny that they have flaws, but for me, their overall gameplay is among the best in the entire series and for that I'm willing to look past most if not all of the issues they have.
I like how you get to see the silhouettes of the legendaries in US/UM before battling them. Especially when it comes to the ones that appear in the Green Wormholes, they are standing on the hill in front of you before you get to battle them. That's just so cool.
A very minor thing which I'm not sure if it counts, but I like this: Looking at the water that's under the opening to the Ultra Wormhole at the Altar in Gen 7 feels like looking up at the night sky, or down at a reflection of it. It is as if you are looking down into space. At least it feels that way to me, don't know if anyone else feels the same way.
I like it when minor NPCs in the games makes references to Pokedex entries, in terms of how their Pokemon work. Two examples I can think of are from B2/W2. There's a worker in Twist Mountain who mentions that his Sigilyph always wants to fly in the same direction, but he doesn't know why. This is a reference to Sigilyph being a guardian of an ancient city, as stated in several of its Pokedex entries. Another one is from a School Kid in the Celestial Tower. She retreats to the Pokemon Center in Mistralton after you beat her, saying that she felt burned out after the battle. Her Pokemon is a Litwick, which absorbs the life force of people according to the Pokedex, so it was probably the cause of her burnout. There's probably more but those two stood out to me.
I like when there are puns in the Pokedex entries. For example, the entry for Bounsweet in Ultra Moon: "It tries to resist being swallowed by a bird Pokémon by spinning the sepals on its head. It's usually a fruitless attempt." Love it. There are others too but this was the main one I could remember.
I want to talk more about things I really like even if they aren't my top favorites. This time, a certain game pair. X and Y. These games were just so much fun to play and I spent a surprisingly large amount of time on them. I think they are really good games. From the main series Pokemon games that have been released for the 3DS, they are my favorites. They are also my third favorite games in the series on the whole (or second favorites, depending on how you count). I won't deny that they have flaws, but for me, their overall gameplay is among the best in the entire series and for that I'm willing to look past most if not all of the issues they have.
Uh, that's useful if it's the legendary you want. If it isn't, soft-resetting won't help since the Pokemon is determined when you arrive. (plus my 3DS' shoulder buttons are toast so I have to close the game and start it again. I should really consider getting a new 3DS and transferring all my data to it)
Uh, that's useful if it's the legendary you want. If it isn't, soft-resetting won't help since the Pokemon is determined when you arrive. (plus my 3DS' shoulder buttons are toast so I have to close the game and start it again. I should really consider getting a new 3DS and transferring all my data to it)
This was about the difference between red wormholes and other ones. For non-red wormholes, you can walk up, see that the silhouette isn't the legendary you want, then turn around and retry the Ultra Warp Ride. For red wormholes, you can save in the area, start the battle, see that the silhouette isn't the legendary you want, then soft reset and turn around and retry the Ultra Warp Ride. If soft resetting is difficult because of hardware issues, I think you're even allowed to run from the battle with no consequences. Finally you do get to hear the legendary's cry and see some text before the battle starts, which you might be able to use to turn around. Yes red wormholes take longer than non-red ones, but everything possible with a non-red wormhole is also possible with a red one.
This was about the difference between red wormholes and other ones. For non-red wormholes, you can walk up, see that the silhouette isn't the legendary you want, then turn around and retry the Ultra Warp Ride. For red wormholes, you can save in the area, start the battle, see that the silhouette isn't the legendary you want, then soft reset and turn around and retry the Ultra Warp Ride. If soft resetting is difficult because of hardware issues, I think you're even allowed to run from the battle with no consequences. Finally you do get to hear the legendary's cry and see some text before the battle starts, which you might be able to use to turn around. Yes red wormholes take longer than non-red ones, but everything possible with a non-red wormhole is also possible with a red one.
I like how, starting in Gen 6 (according to Bulbapedia), the Friendship level of a Pokemon is no longer reset if you trade it to one game and then trade it back to the first game. I randomly found out about this yesterday as I have been training a Geodude in Ultra Sun. It evolved into Graveler yesterday and I traded it to Ultra Moon to evolve it into Golem, then I traded it back to Ultra Sun. I checked its Friendship level as I assumed it would have been reset which would have forced me to make it more friendly again in order to make it's Return more powerful, but that wasn't the case! So I'm really happy about that.
Another thing I like about US/UM. The minor graphical upgrades from S/M. I have noticed several of these after I have went back to do various minor things in S/M after playing US/UM. Some of the most notable ones are the IV Judge screen, the speech bubbles and bottom screen menu in Festival Plaza, as well as the general menu background (which also looks different depending on whether you are playing US or UM, that's really cool).
I like how you can access Poke Pelago and Festival Plaza directly from the menu in Gen 7, no matter where you are in the game. It doesn't matter where you are since these aren't bound to any specific location within the games. I think this is great since I use them for daily events and that means I can do my daily events wherever I am, they don't force me to be in a specific location like several daily events in previous generations did.
I checked its Friendship level as I assumed it would have been reset which would have forced me to make it more friendly again in order to make it's Return more powerful, but that wasn't the case! So I'm really happy about that.
There's a very little niptick on the trading, if you trade a Pokemon back to its own OT, the trade will say "Welcome back X!" or similar localized versions.
I like how you can access Poke Pelago and Festival Plaza directly from the menu in Gen 7, no matter where you are in the game. It doesn't matter where you are since these aren't bound to any specific location within the games.
It would have been much greater if Plaza wasn't the place that hosted the GTS and Battle Spot sadly. It's obnoxious to always have to load that for trades.
I like how you can access Poke Pelago and Festival Plaza directly from the menu in Gen 7, no matter where you are in the game. It doesn't matter where you are since these aren't bound to any specific location within the games. I think this is great since I use them for daily events and that means I can do my daily events wherever I am, they don't force me to be in a specific location like several daily events in previous generations did.
I agree that having the option to go there on the pause menu is neat, but I also agree with Worldie that tying online features to plaza like trading is pretty inconvenient.
I'm really fond of how useful the touch screen have been in previous gens.
D/P/Pt had the Poketch, which has a ton of useful features. I sort of wish most of the apps were easier to get, but that's not much of an issue nowadays when we have guides. HG/SS removed most of the useful bottom screen features, unfortunately. It's pretty much just the pause menu and quick access to 2 key items and a toggle for the running shoes. It is neat that they made it possible to play the entire game with just the touch screen and D-Pad, but ultimately that's quite useless.
B/W had the C-Gear, which was fine but not nearly as useful as the Poketch. I didn't really use it much when I played B/W though, since it seems to be tied quite closely to multiplayer features, which I didn't get to until Gen 6.
X/Y has a pretty good use of the bottom screen. The PSS alone is pretty much what the C-Gear should've been. It's simple and easy to connect to the internet, making it more accessible to get into online play, as well as being a super convenient tool for active traders/battlers. I don't really like to call Pokemon amie a bottom screen feature, since most of the stuff you do with it take you to a different menu. But Super training has some handy features, like showing you the EV chart on the bottom screen between battles. And there's also OR/AS, which really puts the Gen 7 bottom screen to shame, having all the features of the X/Y bottom screen, and adding a map and the Dex nav, which is probably the best way to hunt for hidden abilities to date.
Gen 7 seems to get quite a lot of flack for pretty much only having 1 feature from the OR/AS bottom screen, the map. While it is a shame that there isn't that many useful bottom screen features, they did seem to spend a lot of work on making the Rotom dex act as a natural UI. You're not looking at a menu that the game only once or twice refer to as a phone-like thing, you're looking at the screen of your Pokedex that's fit with a rotom. So you can touch the side of the pokedex and get various reactions from him. In US/UM there's also put more details on the Rotom dex, it now reflects the current sunlight as well. There may not be a lot of useful features to the rotom dex in gen 7, but damn does it have a lot of attention to detail.
Overall, I'd say OR/AS uses the bottom screen to the fullest extent, but the Poketch in D/P/Pt is quite good as well.
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