iirc Stunfisk also isn't available because all the water & puddles it normally appears in freeze in winter so the routes turn into water-less ice puzzles
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SPOILERS! Mysteries and Conspiracies of Pokemon
- Thread starter stage7_4
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There's a couple of interesting discrepancies between region artwork and in-game maps I've always found curious.
The official artwork of the Unova region in BW and B2W2 shows a small stream originating somewhere to the north of Opelucid City and flowing through Route 10 and 11 before eventually depositing into the larger channel between central and eastern Unova. But this stream doesn't appear on the in-game map - and the player only crosses one river to get to Victory Road, which the in-game map shows to be the right-hand river that divides the region. But it isn't - the game map connects the end of the river on Route 10 to the top of the waterfall on Route 11.
So what's going on?
(Also while I'm at it why do the two bridges that extend out of the Entralink continue through the forest and across the river? It looks odd and serves precisely no purpose in-game...)
And then there's Kanto and the Sevii Islands.
In the artwork for Kanto in Gen 3 and 4 off the coast of Route 14 is a big green island. It's not present in any of the in-game maps, nor the artwork from Gen 1, 2, or 7, making it stick out oddly since the artwork for regions from Gen 3 onwards is almost detail-for-detail accurate except for this. Why is it there? Two options present themselves - either this area was meant to be in the game for some purpose, or whoever was drawing the artwork felt that having a giant right-angle at the side of the region was unsightly.
Meanwhile Two Island has a big empty secondary island off the southern coast. This one is included in the in-game maps (it's harder to see on the artwork):
Every other island in the chain except Four Island has more than one landmass included in their territory, so why is this area seemingly deserted? Some people have suggested that this is where New Island from the first movie or Pokemon Island from Snap are meant to be, but both of those seem implausible. Could this potentially have been an event location? Navel Rock is between islands 4 and 5 and Birth Island is in the vicinity of 6 and 7, but there's no corresponding island nearby 1, 2, and 3 (not that there has to be, but it stands out because of this and the fact that it's visually identical to Navel Rock). Jirachi never had an in-game location in any of the Gen 3 games - might this have been it? Celebi seems the more logical choice, but was already associated with Colosseum and XD; Jirachi's inclusion in those games always felt out of place to me.
The official artwork of the Unova region in BW and B2W2 shows a small stream originating somewhere to the north of Opelucid City and flowing through Route 10 and 11 before eventually depositing into the larger channel between central and eastern Unova. But this stream doesn't appear on the in-game map - and the player only crosses one river to get to Victory Road, which the in-game map shows to be the right-hand river that divides the region. But it isn't - the game map connects the end of the river on Route 10 to the top of the waterfall on Route 11.
So what's going on?
(Also while I'm at it why do the two bridges that extend out of the Entralink continue through the forest and across the river? It looks odd and serves precisely no purpose in-game...)
And then there's Kanto and the Sevii Islands.
In the artwork for Kanto in Gen 3 and 4 off the coast of Route 14 is a big green island. It's not present in any of the in-game maps, nor the artwork from Gen 1, 2, or 7, making it stick out oddly since the artwork for regions from Gen 3 onwards is almost detail-for-detail accurate except for this. Why is it there? Two options present themselves - either this area was meant to be in the game for some purpose, or whoever was drawing the artwork felt that having a giant right-angle at the side of the region was unsightly.
Meanwhile Two Island has a big empty secondary island off the southern coast. This one is included in the in-game maps (it's harder to see on the artwork):
Every other island in the chain except Four Island has more than one landmass included in their territory, so why is this area seemingly deserted? Some people have suggested that this is where New Island from the first movie or Pokemon Island from Snap are meant to be, but both of those seem implausible. Could this potentially have been an event location? Navel Rock is between islands 4 and 5 and Birth Island is in the vicinity of 6 and 7, but there's no corresponding island nearby 1, 2, and 3 (not that there has to be, but it stands out because of this and the fact that it's visually identical to Navel Rock). Jirachi never had an in-game location in any of the Gen 3 games - might this have been it? Celebi seems the more logical choice, but was already associated with Colosseum and XD; Jirachi's inclusion in those games always felt out of place to me.
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I've always found it really interesting how Gen 5 is the only generation where the Pikachu line is not obtainable in any capacity within the games proper. It isn't in either BW or BW2's regional dex, it's not in their postgames, it wasn't even in the Dream World! You could only obtain it via transfer. Originally I pondered whether this was a bizarre oversight or deliberate, but ever since I recently learned about the DW exclusion which was otherwise only a thing for extremely rare and valuable mons like certain Mythicals there's no doubt this was a conscious decision. That leads to the next question: Why? Why would they go out of their way to exclude the franchise mascot? Was it meant to be some sort of statement on the soft-reboot nature of Gen 5 or are there other potential motivations?
It's quite ironic as a Pikachu does appear as an NPC in Castelia City, IIRC.
I think it was just a weird "sort of statement" on the soft reboot. Especially since Pikachu shows up in like 3 or 4 places around the region.
It was given away for a few events, I suppose, but I don't think there could be any other motivation. Even the events where it was given out it wasnt touted as oh ho, come and get this rare pokemon.
It's still a bizarre decision to stick with for the entire generation though, especially in BW2
NPC in Castelia City, Village Bridge and shows up on signage in Castelia and I think a few other places. It's weird!
Bianca in BW2's PWT has 3 teams
her Driftveil squad makes some sense. SHe's got her signature Musharna. She's the professor's assistant who gives out starters, so she has the 3 mid-stage starters. Audino kind of fits her helpfulness theming as well. And then a Fraxure because....? Well it's kind of an iconic Unova Pokemon I guess. Cheren had one too...
Her World Leader team is the same thing, just upgraded .Musharna, the 3 fully evolved starters, Haxorus and then swapped out Audino for her actual Stoutland. Makes sense! I still probably would have used Meinshao but okay.
But then there's the Unova Leader team and ... what??
I can see no discernible theme here. It really is just a hodge podge of random Pokemon with no real connection to Bianca. It seems she's the only leader in the tournament without a guaranteed ace, too?
her Driftveil squad makes some sense. SHe's got her signature Musharna. She's the professor's assistant who gives out starters, so she has the 3 mid-stage starters. Audino kind of fits her helpfulness theming as well. And then a Fraxure because....? Well it's kind of an iconic Unova Pokemon I guess. Cheren had one too...
Her World Leader team is the same thing, just upgraded .Musharna, the 3 fully evolved starters, Haxorus and then swapped out Audino for her actual Stoutland. Makes sense! I still probably would have used Meinshao but okay.
But then there's the Unova Leader team and ... what??
I can see no discernible theme here. It really is just a hodge podge of random Pokemon with no real connection to Bianca. It seems she's the only leader in the tournament without a guaranteed ace, too?
But then there's the Unova Leader team and ... what??
I can see no discernible theme here. It really is just a hodge podge of random Pokemon with no real connection to Bianca. It seems she's the only leader in the tournament without a guaranteed ace, too?
Also, what's up with that Toxicroak and Nidoqueen?
There's a lot of weirdness going on in these movesets:
-Nidoqueen & Toxicroak lack any stab
-Bisharp doesnt have Iron head
-Abomasnow lacks Blizzard, has 2 ice stabs (though tbf Icy Wind is good for the Doubles & Triples support) and no grass stab
-Abomasnow being here at all, really? On a team with no ice types & only one Pokemon (Reuniclus) that can sometimes shrug off hail
what is this team??? why is this team???
my best guess is on 2 assumptionsBianca in BW2's PWT has 3 teams
her Driftveil squad makes some sense. SHe's got her signature Musharna. She's the professor's assistant who gives out starters, so she has the 3 mid-stage starters. Audino kind of fits her helpfulness theming as well. And then a Fraxure because....? Well it's kind of an iconic Unova Pokemon I guess. Cheren had one too...
Her World Leader team is the same thing, just upgraded .Musharna, the 3 fully evolved starters, Haxorus and then swapped out Audino for her actual Stoutland. Makes sense! I still probably would have used Meinshao but okay.
But then there's the Unova Leader team and ... what??
I can see no discernible theme here. It really is just a hodge podge of random Pokemon with no real connection to Bianca. It seems she's the only leader in the tournament without a guaranteed ace, too?
1. bianca has been getting more mons from her travels/position
2. she is using all these mons to disrupt the opponent and their stat boosts.
croak and bisharp have taunt, goth neuters spd, reuni flips the defnses, aboma/nido with stat change ignoring moves and leech seed/flatter respectively
also all 6 mons are not neutral to fighting?
side note that reuni can always ignore hail, overcoat and mguard both make it immune to hail
I could believe Bianca has gotten more mons from her travels but it's still a weird team without a theme and it's even weirder because if any team should be a world traveler it should be the World Leader team not the Unova Leader line up.
Disrupting the opponent also doesn't really fit with the usual theming of Bianca or how these tournaments are generally set up.
Now if they wanted to make that her theme that'd be cool. Give her an entirely different team again in World Leader, go nuts. But instead this weird ass team is shoved in here
ah that's right, I forgot Magic Guard is just Overcoat But Better in gen 5.
Questions from something that just happened in a video I was watching: If you catch a Cramorant while it has an Arrokuda or Pikachu in its mouth, shouldn't that also mean you caught the Arrokuda or Pikachu?
Of course it only shows you caught the Cramorant, so where did the Arrokuda and Pikachu go?
Does the player remove them from Cramorants and return them to the wild?
What if I wanted to catch the Arrokuda or Pikachu? Couldn't I initiate another battle with them or are they too traumatized from almost being eaten they don't want to battle.
But if they're too traumatized to battle maybe releasing them back in the wild isn't a good idea.
Actually, what happens to the Arrokuda and Pikachu after it spits it at a Pokemon that attacks it? If its on land the Arrokuda should be flopping around (though where did it get the Arrokuda?) and if we're over water than Pikachu should be nearby swimming to the closest shoreline (though where did it get the Pikachu?).
And what about the Dreepy family? Those a just Dreepy that Drakloak and Dragapult have on their heads, why don't they count as their own Pokemon?
Since they help Drakloak and Dragapult battle don't they also get experience so shouldn't they eventually evolve?
Where does Drakloak and Dragapult get their Dreepy when they evolve?
If they lose one where does it get another?
Of course it only shows you caught the Cramorant, so where did the Arrokuda and Pikachu go?
Does the player remove them from Cramorants and return them to the wild?
What if I wanted to catch the Arrokuda or Pikachu? Couldn't I initiate another battle with them or are they too traumatized from almost being eaten they don't want to battle.
But if they're too traumatized to battle maybe releasing them back in the wild isn't a good idea.
Actually, what happens to the Arrokuda and Pikachu after it spits it at a Pokemon that attacks it? If its on land the Arrokuda should be flopping around (though where did it get the Arrokuda?) and if we're over water than Pikachu should be nearby swimming to the closest shoreline (though where did it get the Pikachu?).
And what about the Dreepy family? Those a just Dreepy that Drakloak and Dragapult have on their heads, why don't they count as their own Pokemon?
Since they help Drakloak and Dragapult battle don't they also get experience so shouldn't they eventually evolve?
Where does Drakloak and Dragapult get their Dreepy when they evolve?
If they lose one where does it get another?
presumably they get spit out as the ball hits
with arrokuda its also plausible it actually gets eaten
Dreepy's evos get new dreepy to take care of, then
they are spirits so they could follow their "parents"
It's the same weirdness as Slowpoke's Shellder and Mantine's old Remoraid.
Actually not Mantine's Remoraid, Gen IV fixed it by requiring a Remoraid in your party for Mantyke to evolve. Although the Remoraid isn't actually consumed by doing so, iirc. This is similar to Karrablast and Shellder too, who get involved in some kind of symbiotic relationship through trade.
It's something I'd like to see more of. For a Drakloak to evolve into Dragapult, 2 Dreepy have to be in the party as it levels up and are consumed as they form a symbiosis. Or Slowbro requires a Shellder (or better yet, introduce the shell Pokémon in its own right since it's clearly not a Shellder) which is consumed, or even a baby Paras whose fungus is discovered to be its own Pokémon albeit extremely weak, needing to latch onto Paras-Baby to "evolve".
Both symbiotic and parasitic organisms are extremely common in nature. Think the sea anemones that hermit crabs transfer between their shells, or poison ivy that "strangle" trees. Even bees and flowering plants. Though hermit crabs and sea anemones are a match made in heaven, similar to Mantine and Remoraid, in the context of Pokémon I think it's reasonable for a pure Grass-Type tree Pokémon to evolve using a pure Poison-Type poison ivy Pokémon and become a Grass/Poison evolution, or for a Bug/Grass-Type Pokémon to be a fusion of bees and a flowering plant somehow. I think it would lead to some very creative designs and would add a lot of lore to the Pokémon World, making it feel more "alive" and connected.
Though Cramorant should just trigger its Gulp Missile ability when a ball is thrown at it. That's not really symbiotic or parasitic, since neither party wins by either "choking a little" (Shield) or being the thing that's choked on a little.
Hence "Mantine's old Remoraid"
So y'know that "Who's the real #1?" debate/meme comparing Bulbasaur, Rhydon, Mew and Arceus?
Well, it looks there's now a 5th contender in this contest as of Isle of Armor.
"Herdier is a very smart and friendly Pokémon. So much so that there's a theory that Herdier was the first Pokémon to partner with people." Pokemon Sword
Well, it looks there's now a 5th contender in this contest as of Isle of Armor.
"Herdier is a very smart and friendly Pokémon. So much so that there's a theory that Herdier was the first Pokémon to partner with people." Pokemon Sword
First to partner with people is so far from being "the first Pokemon" that I'm not sure if you're joking or not, considering that literally all four of the others are "first Pokemon to exist period contenders" with two of them being real world references and two being Lore.
It's also almost certainly wrong regardless unless they're trying to say Herdier is older than Golett/Golurk.
Bad example, cause I'm sure it's perfectly possible for the Lillipup species to be older than Golett/Golurk. Like, sure, the dog species it's based on came about during the 1800s, but that doesn't mean the same history also affects Lillipup (infact it looks like it may take a LONG time for a Pokemon species to actually change via the actual definition of evolution). Heck, the SwSh dex description mentioned makes it sound like that's the case. The first Pokemon to partner with a human? That would make the Lillipup species way older than AZ who is 3k years old and it looks like he's from a time when human-Pokemon partnerships were well established (this was also the same time the initial Darkest Day happened in Galar). Infact, according to Bulbapedia's history of the Pokemon World, the Relic Castle was built 2,500 years ago and Dragonspiral Tower probably not too long before/after. Golett & Golurk were made by the ancient people who built the tower probably for the purpose of protecting the tower, meaning that indeed the Lillipup species is older than the Golett species!
As for the meme, well:
Bulbasaur: First Pokemon in the sense that it's the Pokemon that Professor Oak decided to be the first Pokemon listed in his Pokedex project. A completely arbitrary circumstance that any of the original 151 Pokemon could have been assigned (well, okay, any of the Pokemon which is a basic stage).
Rhydon: The only meta one here, Rhydon was the first Pokemon drawn in concept art and than coded into the game (or they at least gave it the honor of having the index of 001).
Mew & Arceus: Now this is where it gets complicated as we're dealing with two regions conflicting lore. Kanto says Mew is the ancestor of all Pokemon, but Sinnoh says Arceus was the first being period to be created from the egg of chaos and brought the rest of the universe into existence through the creation of Dialga & Palkia. Now I could maybe see a way of combining them, like Arceus may have been the first "physical" creature to have come into existence BUT turns out Mew is actually the very essence of the chaos that Arceus was born from and thus everything including Pokemon come from. It only gained a physical body when Arceus took control but it did exist in a metaphysical sense before Arceus. So, in other words we sort of have a "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" argument here.
Golurk appear in the War flashback that AZ has, so they at the very least predate the Relic Castle if we're accepting those relative dates (though the Relic Castle is "at least" 2500 years old).
Regardless, Dragonspiral Tower has to be at least 3000 years old itself, as it is Unova's oldest structure and the underwater ruin of the Relic item civilization should be at least 3000 years old per the item descriptions of >3000 years.
Relic castle is listed as having been built by one of the twins, which puts it as existing when dragonspiral tower was last used (at the conclusion of their fight). I would expect they're approximately the same age
The 3000-year date lining up with Kalos' backstory produces interesting speculation on how several regions might have been connected. If Unova and Kalos were aware of each other's existence that far back, it's extremely likely the feud between brothers in Unova would have been brought into the larger war elsewhere. If you wanted to go all-in on connections, we also have Volcarona being enshrined at Relic Castle. Both the dust clouds that would have been kicked up by the Ultimate Weapon's impact and the Darkest Day (also being dated to ~3000 years ago) could easily have been the dark clouds that volcarona is enshrined for providing warmth through.
While a fun speculation, I feel in the case of Unova and Galar's Darkest Day that they're too far apart for one to affect the other. The Darkest Day would have likely spread around the whole planet if it wasn't stopped, but the Z-Wolves (do we have an official group naming for them yet?) did stop it. The event that Volcarona was a part of likely was just a natural occurrence.
However, if Kalos & Galar were close enough to each other as the real France and UK, that's a different story entirely as what affected one might have affected the other. Heck, we don't know who Kalos was fighting. For all we know, after having saved Galar from the Darkest Day, the newly crowned kings may have tried going on a scourge of conquest to show their might and invaded Kalos... eventually leading to AZ creating the Ultimate Weapon and firing it. We may not that much about the two kings which the Z-Wolves helped because their scourge or conquest ended in failure right there and so were overthrown or self-exiled out of shame (and since AZ also went into self-exile that left two regions without monarch leaders). Would explain why no one in Galar seems to know ANYTHING about the heroes of the Darkest Day, they were ousted as soon after being crowned.