Added bonus of having Dragon be the first gym: the last two gens have had the Elite 4 (or Elite 4 equivalent) be full of previous important trainers like gym leaders and kahunas. An early Dragon gym leader would be perfect to return later as a champion or final Elite 4 member.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
I think wanting Dragon as a first/early Gym shows people are looking for a little shake-up, and I'd imagine this would also extend to the Elite Four (and maybe Champion). Thinking of interesting first/early Gym Leaders they could have:
- Dragon: Obviously the first one, Dragon-types provide the challenge of being resistant to all the Starter Types. They often have Dragon as late game Gym's or Elite Four's/Champion's Types with the idea it would test the player by having them go up against a Type that, no matter what, resists their Starter. But the problem with that thinking is by then you'd probably would have faced a boss which resisted your Starter's Type, would have a Pokemon that would do at least neutral damage against Dragon, and your Starter may have coverage that does SE against Dragon or the Dragon's secondary Type. But if you make the Dragon Gym early game, now that's a completely different story. It would be like what they did in BW by having you always at a disadvantage against the Striaton Trio, except this might feel less forced as it's only one Type and it resists but isn't SE so you could possibly still use your Starter against it if you want.
- Steel: Early game most players are thinking offensively, so throwing a monkey wrench by having a super defensive Type could early on show the player they need to make more diverse strategies (maybe even rely on status moves). Though to make this work it would need to be a Steel-type that has Heatproof and good Special Defense.
- Ghost/Dark: Combined the two together as they'd both will likely have the same gimmick of being tricksters and inflicting all sorts of status ailments and debuffs. You may be able to power your way through but it wouldn't be the most clean victory, definitely something to trip up the player.
- Fighting/Psychic: And if you really hate the player just put a Gym Leader which uses a Type that hits really hard. Fighting on the physical end, Psychic on the special. Really make them think about using those status moves instead of deleting them the first chance they get.
As for the Elite Four, imagine we get one with the following Types:
- Normal, Bug, Flying, Rock: The Types you usually encounter on the first few routes, the Types you often box first when you're done with them. And now we come full circle with an Elite Four who uses those Types to their "full potential". Who knows, since late game often trains you to raise a specialized team to handle specialized Types, maybe this Elite Four of Types you pretty much forgot about until now may surprise you what they can do.
- Fire, Water, Grass, & Electric/Normal: AKA the Starter Types. Often you're the only trainer that uses the combination of these Types together with bosses that specialize in one of these Types having some distance between each other. So how about an Elite Four where you gotta battle these special Types to the player back-to-back.
We already had an Elite Four Bug-type specialist in the name of Aaron, from the Sinnoh region. He wasn't really involved in the large scheme unlike a certain Flint, Fire-type Elite Four from the same Region, but that's still worth pointing out as something already done.
Speaking of Flint, him having Infernape as his signature Pokémon in the long run proved to be a neat surprise instead of being an effective last-minute-Ace in Diamond/Pearl. While Platinum did properly introduce Magmortar and make his Ace, Infernape remained part of Flint's team possibly as a reference to being Flint's former ace back in Diamond and Pearl.
The Anime and Pokémon Masters even kept Infernape as his Ace as is instead of Magmortar. I honestly prefer that way because as much as I love Magmortar, having a starter in a team at all for someone beyond the player, rival and champion makes Flint stand out even more.
And before anyone protests that it makes a starter "less special", do keep in mind that you still don't capture other starters in-game; the truth is that they are not a one-of-a-kind species unlike how most Legendary Pokémon and Mythical Pokémon are in the games (the Anime may say otherwise) but rather exceptionally rare. It is not like many NPCs suddenly uses a starter as well, but rather very sparsely used. That rarity is part of why Flint stood out among the Sinnoh Elite Four members, another part being his interesting contrast with Volkner, the Electric-type Gym Leader of Sinnoh.
On then topic of Gen 6 and Lysandre, I understood his goals as:
- Preserve the life of righteous people that work to create a 'beautiful' world in X
- Destroy the selfish and ignorant people that make our world 'uglier' in Y
Indeed, he Ultimate Weapon has the power to revive and kill, as seen with AZ's Floette and his enemies at the big Kalos War that I WISH WE GET TO KNOW MORE ABOUT! So yeah, Team Flare was planning in making themselves inmortal and killing everyone else with that thing. Both Xerneas and Yveltal are used as batteries of Pokémon life force. AZ never captured Xerneas nor Yveltal (or at least he doesn't bring them up), so he used lots of Pokemon as sacrifice.
Lysandre's fate is unclear. Pokemon Y implies he died, or he ran away in the last second? And Pokemon X implies he's alive and inmortal somewhere, since he was threatening us with eternal life. Also, he is a descendant of AZ's brother, the other figure behind the ancient war. This fact...never comes into play during the plot. Is Lysandre acting out of shame and disgust for his ancestor's actions? Or is he claiming what it's 'rightfully' his and take the fate of the world on his hands?
Overall, Lysandre was an interesting idea. I mean, who doesn't like morally ambiguous villains? However, the way it was executed and all this wasted potential is what kills it for me :/ Really, that war 3000 years ago and AZ were the best part of the story, yet it has little importance in the large scheme of things. It also gets completely ignored in the anime...
- Preserve the life of righteous people that work to create a 'beautiful' world in X
- Destroy the selfish and ignorant people that make our world 'uglier' in Y
Indeed, he Ultimate Weapon has the power to revive and kill, as seen with AZ's Floette and his enemies at the big Kalos War that I WISH WE GET TO KNOW MORE ABOUT! So yeah, Team Flare was planning in making themselves inmortal and killing everyone else with that thing. Both Xerneas and Yveltal are used as batteries of Pokémon life force. AZ never captured Xerneas nor Yveltal (or at least he doesn't bring them up), so he used lots of Pokemon as sacrifice.
Lysandre's fate is unclear. Pokemon Y implies he died, or he ran away in the last second? And Pokemon X implies he's alive and inmortal somewhere, since he was threatening us with eternal life. Also, he is a descendant of AZ's brother, the other figure behind the ancient war. This fact...never comes into play during the plot. Is Lysandre acting out of shame and disgust for his ancestor's actions? Or is he claiming what it's 'rightfully' his and take the fate of the world on his hands?
Overall, Lysandre was an interesting idea. I mean, who doesn't like morally ambiguous villains? However, the way it was executed and all this wasted potential is what kills it for me :/ Really, that war 3000 years ago and AZ were the best part of the story, yet it has little importance in the large scheme of things. It also gets completely ignored in the anime...
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Sounds like XY in a nutshell.
I meant as a group. An Elite Four where the members are Normal, Bug, Flying, & Rock.
I know we've have Elite Four members of few of the Types I mentioned.
In Y it's implied he died when the UW's blast destroyed it, X is left unclear as he spouted how he would make everyone live forever... and then the UW's blast destroys itself. So if what Lysandre said was true, that would mean he's now immortal and stuck under the UW's rubbled inside the crater in Geosenge.
Personally fan theory, I'm going to go by the rule of "no body = no death". After becoming Champion a week passes and we have the awards ceremony where we and our rivals are honored as heroes of Kalos. In that time you'd think a search team would have been sent into the crater and looked around, so if Lydandre or at least his body was still in there it would have been found. But nope, nothing, so personally I think after the firing of the UW destroyed itself, the now immortal but incredibly injured Lysandre was taken by the female Flare scientists (because those four vanish off the face of the earth after their final appearance in the Geosenge base). If there was a Pokemon Z planned I would not be surprised to hear that Lysandre was planned to return.
What little we know about AZ's younger brother is that, after AZ ended the war, he realized what a horrible mistake he made and tried making amends. This includes burying the UW.
That said, that doesn't really seem like a major factor in his decisions or at least isn't on the surface. If there is anything to that, it could be that since he's a descendent of Kalos royalty he feels like he has a obligation to help Kalos. Thus leading him down his path.
Fixed
BW disagrees with you.
Forgive me if i'm not understanding, are you two implying that BW and SM are games that executed their ideas well and weren't full of good ideas with poor execution / wasted potential? :P
What I meant was that I thought that BW handled the villainous team well compared to other entries- since we were talking about Lysandre and how goofy Team Flare.
That I won't disagree with, my "remark" was that the concept of "good idea, terrible execution" is sadly very common in pokemon games and the exceptions to it can be counted on possibly two hands at best.
BW and SM have my favorite stories in the main games, despite the missed potential I noticed in some instances. For BW, it was revealing Team Plasma to be villainous way too early, taking a lot (if not all) of the moral dilemma out of the window because we don't want to side with the a-holes that kick Munnas. For SM, it was not having Lillie as the player character, who has a very notable growth and the story mostly revolves around her, only thing missing is that the Avatar does the battling.
Too bad that both of their anime adaptations also waste these stories and characters...
That sounds that it could have been possible, considering if the hypothetical Pokemon Z were a sequel and not an enhanced version that fixes the story.
Too bad that both of their anime adaptations also waste these stories and characters...
That sounds that it could have been possible, considering if the hypothetical Pokemon Z were a sequel and not an enhanced version that fixes the story.
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I've said this before, but the only argument that came back was that it buffed Poison and nerfed Dragon. And like you said, Dragon wasn't a problem until Gen 4 when they all got Draco Meteor. Plus, all dragons until Gen 5 (except Kingdra which has fairly lackluster stats anyways) had an easily exploitable 4x weakness to Ice.
As for buffing Poison, the same could be accomplished by making it super-effective against Ground or Water without making a whole new type.
And I feel like Fairy is such a specific concept for a type and that's why some of its type matchups, such as resistance to Bug, make no sense (and also why only its matchups against Poison and Dragon make any logical sense), because it was only created to buff Poison and nerf Dragon.
edit- oh im really late lmao why was this in my inbox?
Since we're talking about our issues with the Fairy-Type Pokémon (or have done since the last time I checked this thread, anyway)... my unpopular opinion is that Ghost-Type should be weak to it instead of Dark-Type.
I truly believe that the only reason why Dark- is weak to Fairy-Type is so that Sableye and Spiritomb acquired a weakness, but when looking at those two types I see just about no justification why Dark-Type would be chosen as the weakness to Fairy-Type. The only justification I can really think of is that Dark-Type Pokémon get their power from being able to think maliciously, and a pixie buzzing around your face is distracting. Which sounds really weak as logic, but then again I'm pretty sure that's why Bug-Type is super effective on Dark-Type.
On the other hand, though, Ghost- and Fairy-Type Pokémon not having a type chart interaction is stranger than anything else. They're the two "ethereal" types, harnessing powers from aspects of the universe that are unavailable to us. Ghosts are tied to the natural world, not being able to pass into the afterlife due to an attachment to this existence, while Fairy-Types are the channelers of the natural world who absorb its energy for healing and offence. I think it makes a lot of sense here for Fairy- to be super effective on Ghost-Type as it has superior control over the power source of Ghost-Type Pokémon, which is the same justification for why it's super effective against Dragon-Type Pokémon.
If anything, Fairy- and Dark-Type should probably resist each other considering they're somewhat antithetical. Fairy-Type is the closest thing we have to a devoted healing type, and Dark-Type's maliciousness is the polar opposite to that. Good and evil usually neutralise each other, so both resisting each other would've been cool. Of course, this would have precluded Fairy-Type from being able to give Dark/Ghost Pokémon a weakness, but I never saw it as a huge problem that needed addressing to start with.
I truly believe that the only reason why Dark- is weak to Fairy-Type is so that Sableye and Spiritomb acquired a weakness, but when looking at those two types I see just about no justification why Dark-Type would be chosen as the weakness to Fairy-Type. The only justification I can really think of is that Dark-Type Pokémon get their power from being able to think maliciously, and a pixie buzzing around your face is distracting. Which sounds really weak as logic, but then again I'm pretty sure that's why Bug-Type is super effective on Dark-Type.
On the other hand, though, Ghost- and Fairy-Type Pokémon not having a type chart interaction is stranger than anything else. They're the two "ethereal" types, harnessing powers from aspects of the universe that are unavailable to us. Ghosts are tied to the natural world, not being able to pass into the afterlife due to an attachment to this existence, while Fairy-Types are the channelers of the natural world who absorb its energy for healing and offence. I think it makes a lot of sense here for Fairy- to be super effective on Ghost-Type as it has superior control over the power source of Ghost-Type Pokémon, which is the same justification for why it's super effective against Dragon-Type Pokémon.
If anything, Fairy- and Dark-Type should probably resist each other considering they're somewhat antithetical. Fairy-Type is the closest thing we have to a devoted healing type, and Dark-Type's maliciousness is the polar opposite to that. Good and evil usually neutralise each other, so both resisting each other would've been cool. Of course, this would have precluded Fairy-Type from being able to give Dark/Ghost Pokémon a weakness, but I never saw it as a huge problem that needed addressing to start with.
The thing is, even though Dark type literal name is "Evil" type, Fairy isn't a "good" type and Dark isn't a "evil" type.
Dark types arent necessarly malicious: rather, they're selfish and mischievous. Doesn't mean they inherently like to harm others (see cases like A-muk or Incineroar), rather than their nature isn't exactly gentle or altruistic and some of them just enjoy causing a mess with others.
On the other line, Fairy types aren't good at all: in fact, several fairy types (like the Tapus, or Mawile for example) are described as violent and territorial, with many of them actually not inherently friendly at all.
It's a big misconception that "Fairy type" is "fairies" in the sense of benevolent spirits. They're just natural spirits or entities connected with nature in some way, that doesn't make them "nice" at all. In same way Dark types arent really "evil and malignant entities", rather they tend to not be friendly or altruistic and sometimes be vicious, doesn't make them necessarly violent or indisposed toward humans.
Fairy type being supereffective on Dark types is likely just a play on the "Evil" name in japanese (not a isolated case when it comes to Pokemon) or some folkloristic thing (also not isolated). I don't really see why you'd Dark types to be somewhat resistant to natural energies though.
That said, I don't disagree that Ghost could have had interactivity with Fairyes, however due to the "nature" of ghost types i don't think it makes sense in this context. The reason for which Ghost and Normal are immune to each other is folkloristic (living beings aren't mean to be able to interact with dead ones and other way around), and since "nature" really can include spirits and living creatures alike, I don't see a logic reason to have them interact.
edit: It's late and I'm tired, sorry for the terrible English this time :x
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I always figured the reason why Fairy is Super Effective against & Resist Dark is because Dark uses mundane/physical tricks while Fairy uses magical tricks.
The fairy type chart can be more easily explained (offensively) with one word
cooties
It's why "manly" types like dark, dragon and fighting are weak to it (now try not picturing Hydreigon screaming and exploding after been kissed by some fairy type)
Apparently this is an unpopular opinion, but I would love to see a Normal/Ghost type because of this.
However, every time I discuss it on the sim, someone rotted says it will never happen / shouldn't happen either because of the nature of the two types, or because there aren't any "concepts" for a Normal/Ghost-type Pokémon.
To which I would say, look at Banette, or the scrapped voodoo doll thing from the GS beta, both of which would make perfect sense as a Normal/Ghost. Any Pokémon whose design gimmick is being a "possessed" object has potential to be a Normal/Ghost type because that's exactly what possession is, and I don't understand why that's a hard concept to grasp.
This exists in an in-progress fangame, pokemon Spectrum - https://p-spectrum.fandom.com/wiki/Parabox
It evolves into a pure normal or pure ghost type at random too.
To make sure this post is on topic, I absolutely hate Haxorus' design and was amazed to find out it's a fan favorite. It looks so ridiculous, I like the color scheme and the armor, but come on... it has an axe for a face and it looks terrible. It's so edgy it looks like it's the favorite of a 12 year old who plays too many M rated Xbox games. It doesn't inspire awe in me, but laughter.
I've actually got the opposite opinion. I think Haxorus looks rad as hell. Yeah, the axe head is kinda dumb, but sometimes it feels good to indulge your inner twelve-year-old with cool stuff. However, that piss yellow is hideous.
*Checks* All I'll say on this matter is if GF ever makes a Schrodinger's Cat they do something much more interesting... Seriously, this is what they could only come up with? You have this interesting concept of a paradox Pokemon, a Pokemon that's both a live and dead, and instead of playing with that concept all they did was make a simple split evolution where it loses the thing that made it interesting!
Funny enough, that is seemingly the reason the artist created Haxorus: