To be fair though, Zamazenta's third highest stat in Shield form is Attack, and in its hero form, Attack is its second highest stat. I would not be surprised if people did not believe that's its supposed to be offensive, especially considering that it lacks any good supportive or defensive move.I'm not sure it's fair to directly compare the poses of Zacian and Zamazenta. Sure, they're both doggos, and Zacian is more dynamic, but it would be weird if Zamazenta was just as dynamic. Zacian fights with a thin sword that it holds in its mouth. It makes sense for it to be in dynamic action poses and for it to overlap with itself less. But Zamazenta uses a shield that it wears as a mane. While Zacian gracefully weaves past incoming attacks to get in for a strike, Zamazenta stands strong and unflinching. It's like complaining that Bastiodon has a boring pose because it's not doing flips and shit. It also makes sense for Zamazenta's silhouette to have less distinguishable features. Effective shields tend to cover up distinguishable features, because it means those features are safe behind the shield. When Mr. Game & Watch shields in Melee, his silhouette is pretty distinct, and that's a bad thing.
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- Thread starter antemortem
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Mechanic-wise yes, I get what you are saying. But from a strictly artistic standpoint, and as an artist myself, that's a hard no. The game-and-watch example does not refute my overall point, and don't even know if that's a good example. Yes, Game and Watch in Melee is basically an incomplete character, he can't even L-cancel most of his aerials or have a proper shield. That's a game programming aspect. I am comparing the doggies character design.I'm not sure it's fair to directly compare the poses of Zacian and Zamazenta. Sure, they're both doggos, and Zacian is more dynamic, but it would be weird if Zamazenta was just as dynamic. Zacian fights with a thin sword that it holds in its mouth. It makes sense for it to be in dynamic action poses and for it to overlap with itself less. But Zamazenta uses a shield that it wears as a mane. While Zacian gracefully weaves past incoming attacks to get in for a strike, Zamazenta stands strong and unflinching. It's like complaining that Bastiodon has a boring pose because it's not doing flips and shit. It also makes sense for Zamazenta's silhouette to have less distinguishable features. Effective shields tend to cover up distinguishable features, because it means those features are safe behind the shield. When Mr. Game & Watch shields in Melee, his silhouette is pretty distinct, and that's a bad thing.
It is entirely fair to criticize Zacian and Zamazenta appearances. In order for a character to be well-received, it must be well designed and stand out. Why is the Weather trio iconic and beloved throughout the Pokemon fandom? Well, other than Gen3 being liked and their lore, it's their design that makes them or breaks them.
I appreciate your post though, stay safe and have a great day!
Mmm... I kinda disagree here.
If a character's design doesn't work in tandem with the qualities and role of the character, it's probably a bad design. You can't really say to ignore important aspects of the character just because they're not the artist's choice - the artist's job is to work with those elements and communicate those elements through the design, and that's especially true of gameplay elements when they're tasked with designing a character for a game.
Silhouette: Indeed, Zacian's silhouette is more easily recognizable and can show more dynamic poses. But let me counter with such: so what? The point of them is not to be seen in silhouette but fully colored. That's why when we see them in the Slumbering Weald they decided to make them visible in the fog instead of in shadow. They're drawn in bold colors with intricate details on their respective weapons, they're meant to be seen in color.
And having such a complicated silhouette may not always be such a good thing for recognizability. For example, compared the bottom three Zacian Silhouettes with each other. Would you really think all of those are the same Pokemon? Maybe the top and middle, but the third's silhouette completely changes Zacian's form as its ribbon are spread out. Now compare Zamazenta's silhouette with each other. Even with the third being in a super dynamic pose I can tell all of them are Zamazenta as they keep with its body shape.
Finally, you totally disregard the Pokemon's roles. Zacian is a sword, it's meant to be slick and agile. Its flexibility, wings, and long ribbons are meant to make it look graceful as it's doing sword dueling movements. On the opposite end, Zamazenta is a shield. In shadows it's supposed to look like a big black wall, think how intimidating something like that would look just walking up to you? It is meant to give off a strong presence, an unmoving and impenetrable form.
Color: Actually Zacian is the one that always looked washed out to me because of the pink and light blue (and the yellow also looks lighter in color). Zamazenta looks bolder with more a solid/darker red, blue, and yellow. However that once again falls back onto their roles. Zacian's colors are more muted because most of the time you'll probably be seeing it in a blur. Lighter colors blend more easily together then darker so this goes to make Zacian seem more fluid in its motions. Meanwhile, Zamazenta is a shield. It's in your face, it's standing right there in front of you, and it wants you to know it's not going anywhere.
I don't fully quite understand what the bottom "supplementary colors" is suggesting, but I do know it's showing me green and cyan I got to question the accuracy of whatever its doing.
That's true, I am not going to deny a shield's function. My main point is, Zamazenta-Crowned's design probably could have executed better (like rearranging some parts of his shield) so the design doesn't look overcrowded. The root of the issue is that while I am clearly getting the function and role of Zamazenta, it is not the best way of doing so. Like they could have put some of the armor onto Zamazenta's shoulders, tail, and/or hip (and improve the function of better protecting Zamazenta's blind spots) and that would have improved the design to a degree. Or even stream line it down some. The human eye does not excessive detail. And on another note, there are shield wielders that have recognizable silolettes like Sir Fetch'd and Aeglislash (even in their default official art). So why can't Zamazenta-Crowned? Being a quadruple does not gives him a free pass.
Other than that, I understand what your point is, as why have useless objects in a design anyway? Like having a character that revolves around nonviolence yet they are designed with numerous armories on their waist (I am being a little silly here) They also are prime causes of overdesign.
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The G&W example was just an example of a crappy shield. I didn't mean for it to actually be an example of a poor character design. I'm also not saying it's unfair to criticize Zacian and Zamazenta. What I'm say is that it's unfair to criticize them by the same standards as and against each other. This isn't even about game mechanics. It's about, as you said, character design. Even though Zamazenta (the character you control or fight in battle) is better suited to offense than defense, Zamazenta (the legendary hero of Galar) is not. The Pokedex boasts that Zamazenta is able to "shrug off impressive blows, including the attacks of Dynamax Pokémon," and that is has the "ability to deflect any attack." In the face of adversity, it bravely stands its ground. It is the personification (wolfification?) of an impenetrable defense. This is in stark contrast to Zacian. Zacian is said to be able to defeat any foe with "a single strike", so instead of unflinchingly standing its ground like Zamazenta, Zacian rushes at the enemy, swiftly dodging incoming attacks (because it isn't invincible) and maneuvering to find a weak point. It is the personification of an unstoppable offense, and not the Juggernaut style of unstoppable. It can technically be stopped if you land a good hit, but good luck with that.
Sirfetch'd and Aegislash have arms to hold a shield with the regular way. How do honestly expect Zamazenta to use a shield? If you say "in its mouth like Zacian," then 1) that would look completely ridiculous because its face would be covered, and 2) Zacian honestly looks pretty silly with a sword in its mouth. Sif sort of gets a pass because the sword she uses originally belonged to her master, and she adapted to using it after her master died. What's Zacian's excuse? Zamazenta's "shield" is custom armor in the shape of a shield. Zacian's "sword" is literally just a sword that it wields in the impractical way possible.
I'm also incredibly dubious of anything that claims to calculate ideal color schemes. To quote Graveyard Media, "art is not math".
Oh really, so that's what you meant, okay then that makes a WHOLE lot more sense.
About the latter part, that is partially true. Color theory is a fluid medium to work with, and technically there are multiple colors, hues, and tones that could work. I would be a fool if I said otherwise, and since it is an online calculator there is the probability it could be off. On the other hand, the reason I did those calculations was to try to figure out the original artist's thought process on their choice of colors. I am basically try ing to theoretically reverse engineer the process. The color wheel in photoshop sucks, and I was lucky enough to even find something substantial. You also can't just slap down colors based entirely off our eyes, because our eyes perceive differently. Hightlights, core shadows, reflected cast shadows, halftones, and reflected lights must be accounted for in art and planned. Then include backgrounds, accessories, etc. If you were to do the coloring on a dime, and not think ahead, the art would be a mess. That's the purpose of a color wheel, to act as an important guide. I am literally stating what I learned in my Drawing I and Animation Club workshops.
At least for Zacian, its sif knockoff sword does not interfere as bad as Zamazenta's mane. While the mane does integrate their intended roles more creatively than sif sword, I think the key difference here is how does it impact how our eyes perceive them. Zacian does not suffer the problem of Zamazenta being visually overcrowded because of its sword. It's not by the function 100%, but rather how they choose to implement it. Like I said,
"That's true, I am not going to deny a shield's function. My main point is, Zamazenta-Crowned's design probably could have executed better (like rearranging some parts of his shield) so the design doesn't look overcrowded. The root of the issue is that while I am clearly getting the function and role of Zamazenta, it is not the best way of doing so. Like they could have put some of the armor onto Zamazenta's shoulders, tail, and/or hip (and improve the function of better protecting Zamazenta's blind spots)" and "on the basis of art principles rather than ..."Who looks less stupid", in which you just mentioned that Zacian's sword looks ridiculous and I already mentioned an alternative other than it smouth in my previous posts. I am not trying to bring you down in any way, but I have to point that out in your arguement.
You could also argue the exact rhetoric successfully for Zacian, but at least it does not do so at the entire design's expense
Also, yeah, Zamazenta hero > Zacian hero. I can possibly make a similar post about like I did in the beginning.
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I am a bit late to this, but GameFreaks already shown they *do not* plan to paywall natdex or its surrogates.
If you missed it at DLC announcements, they specifically said that the games are getting a free update with every pokemon that's being added via DLCs. The DLCs themselves only lock the areas where you can catch them, but everyone can receive every Pokemon freely via Trade, GTS, Bank or Go transfers.
If they had any plan to "paywall" the natdex (or its surrogates), they wouldn't have bothered with making everything available to everyone.
They might be lazy or incompetent, but at least they arent being scummy for now.
Key word: for now. I am being cautious here, but considering that the removal of the Natdex itself and then some was already scummy, it wouldn't surprise me in the future. I would love
to be proven wrong though and I would clap for joy
Depends on what you're defining "scummy" there.
We know that despite all the attempts to hide them, the only reason for the lack of entire pokedex in SwSh is sheer incompetence / lack of time, and nothing to do with wanting to force people to spend money on it.
And I still do agree with the removal of the actual "national pokedex" (as in, simply the pokedex itself with the text entryes and numbers) from games as it's discourating for new players anyway and it had to go for the sake of maintaining the series appetible for newcomers.
The actual "national pokedex" has actually returned with Home, in fact, even featuring its own reward for the collectors.
I think I'm starting to see where you're coming from, but I still don't fully agree. Zamazenta's design doesn't look overcrowded to me. The shield design is kinda ornate I guess, but it's visually clear regardless. Unless you're just referring to how it obscures most of its body, to which I'll reiterate that yeah, that's how shields work. Moving pieces of the shield around to cover other parts of Zamazenta's body wouldn't work because then it wouldn't be armor that evokes the feeling of a shield. It would just be... armor. Even if you didn't take apart the shield to do it and just added extra bits, it would still detract from the shield motif by diluting the armor. Also, the extra armor runs the risk of either actually overcrowding the design, or just being obscured by the shield and not really mattering.
I guess above all, I'm confused as to why you considered this such an issue that it warranted a giant diagram. It's as if you're so hung up over art principles that you're forgetting that these aren't just pictures in a vacuum. Visual design is only one part of a character, and while there are changes you could make to those visual designs that might technically be improvements in theory, they might actually be detrimental because they don't mix with the rest of the character or the context in which the character is placed.
Zamazenta isn't just a wolf wearing armor. It's a wolf who is also an ancient hero of a medieval land who fights alongside another hero wolf, and the two of them embody the ideal qualities and evoke the imagery of the iconic tools used by knights of old: a sword and a shield.
16... dollars per month? Are you confusing Nintendo with World of Warcraft?
My friend, I don't think you know how Pokemon Home nor Switch Online work...
I don't mind shittalking stuff usually, but at least know how stuff works before trying to criticize it.
actually, that's the yearly cost. The monthly cost is about $1.33 per month on the yearly plan.
Sorry you guys that's my bad, I accidentally typed in year instead of month. You guys were right, and I really didn't want it make a bad impression here. But anyway, I really don't feel the justification of paying, especially looking in retrospect.
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While I might pay eventually, I do agree that GS just got onto a slippery slope and we should be very vigilant on keeping them sliding down further. Actually, if anything, we should already be pushing back at we free version of Home doesn't let us move Pokemon from Bank onto it! There's a literal paywall to transfer Pokemon up and I don't understand why (aside for scummy reasons of course).
Not to mention that you have to pay for Bank just to transfer kilobytes of data, so effectively 21$ if you are transferring Pokémon.
Is HOME yearly-only? I thought there was a $3 one month option. Idk because I never bother with transeferring
Yeah the $3 a month option exisis.
I still despise Zacian and Zamazenta's typings. I don't care how much sense they make. Zacian should be the Fighting one.
Maybe Fighting/Fairy for both with Crowned taking one of the types to add Steel? (As long as Zacian gets to be Steel/Fighting. Zamazenta being Steel/Fairy would be great tbh, but I wouldn't mind a defensive Steel/Fighting)
Come to think of it, wow, Zamazenta doesn't get King's Shield? Are you kidding me? What is this movepool?
Clearly Zamazenta is from the Captain America's school of Shield fighting.
Also,
Maybe I'm just acting like a boomer because I'm playing Crystal and Silver and you could just transfer mons from RBY with little hassle. Not one-way either. Good times. Good times.
The TLDR is that they had to come up with a way to allow to use GTS without needing Nintendo Online (which is why the GTS is on the phone app), as well as getting the money to keep Bank working (from the sub required in order to transfer from bank).
That's about it.
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you know how toxic has 100% accuracy when used by poison types? i think will o wisp should have 100% accuracy when used by fire types. maybe that's dumb considering that a lot less pokemon learn will o wisp compared to toxic but eh
Problem is Wisp is more commonly associated with the Ghost-type
Burn is a lot more in the detrimental in the official format though. Halving your attack can just make the likes of Gyarados and Dragapault deal underwhelming damage to the point you can ignore them. Toxic is significantly rarer because battles rarely last 5 minutes, so the increased poison isn’t as useful, with exceptions in 2017, where toxic was used to check Snorlax, Porygon 2 and Mandibuzz
I’m surprised it isn’t a Ghost type move. Pretty much every Ghost type can learn it, and wisps are spirits in folklore.