Additionally, while Galarian Mime and Rime are unable to form barriers in the air, they can create barriers of ice on the ground that they can either tap dance on or kick up for defense.
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
Definitely going to have to disagree with that. While a few of the new evolutions don't really work design-wise, I honestly feel that they overall did a pretty good job on this group; Gliscor, Weavile, Mamoswine, Gallade, Electivire and PorygonZ all rank among some of my all-time favorite mons. This is especially true of the Gen 2 evolutions since a lot of those guys frankly needed an evolution; mons like Gligar and Yanma just feel so much more complete with an evolution. Just to give a few examples:
Weavile: Honestly, Sneasel felt outright incomplete as a stand-alone to me. IMO, its stature doesn't look like that of a fully-evolved mon and the one tuft on the side just throws me off. Weavile not only felt like a natural extension, but completes that distracting tuft because now it actually builds to something. As such, Weavile actually makes Sneasel work more by virtue of its existence. On its own merit, Weavile keeps things simple yet stylish, something that's just effortlessly cool.
Gallade: The knightly influence matches the elegance of Gardevoir, with the generic feminine/masculine making the two feel like natural counterparts. The subtle blade arms are also pretty cool while naturally flowing with the rest of it(waist is kind of odd, but that's really my only nitpick).
Honchkrow: Making Murkrow's evolution into a mob-boss makes sense and gives some nice additional flavor to Murk, not to mention fitting perfectly on a crow Pokemon. The design for me strikes a great balance between naturalism (looks like an actual animal), subtle menace and suaveness (Honchkrow is the one guy who actually makes a fedora look cool).
Magnezone: This design feels like it took more than 5 minutes, so already an improvement on Magneton. UFO initially may seem weird, but it actually ties in pretty well flavor-wise with Magnemite's passive levitation.
PorygonZ: Given that the Porygon line is based on software, having the final evolution themed around Porygon "glitching out" fits surprisingly well; it helps that the design is still fairly simple while effectively conveys the concept. Sure, it's not the most natural turn, but in this case that's actually the point-given that you basically gave it malware, it's only logical for it to look a bit uncanny (not to mention Porygon is artificial in the first place).
Again, there's definitely a few cross-evos where I wouldn't disagree with you; Rhyperior is overly-complicated, Ambipom is a bunch of decent ideas with rather mediocre execution, Magmortar's mouth and body just look really uncanny, and while it's not bad Leafeon is easily my least favorite Eeveelution. That said, I cannot agree with dismissing the overall group as "ugly", because there are a lot of designs that do achieve a good balance and feel like a natural extension of their respective lines. At least imo.
So I caught my first Spiritomb as it was intended in the Gen 4 games. And I have to say it's very annoying and I am glad there is an exploit where you can perform the "meeting 32 people" with just 2 DSes.
The annoying part in that one is, if you want both Spiritomb, both players have to great once because apparently the one who is greeting doesn't get it's counter raised by 1.
This thing takes so much.
Makes me wonder why they bothered making so many legendary Pokemon, when they put non-legendaries that are so tedious to obtain.
Makes you wonder how it will work in the upcoming remakes.
The annoying part in that one is, if you want both Spiritomb, both players have to great once because apparently the one who is greeting doesn't get it's counter raised by 1.
This thing takes so much.
Makes me wonder why they bothered making so many legendary Pokemon, when they put non-legendaries that are so tedious to obtain.
Makes you wonder how it will work in the upcoming remakes.
The Mind Electric
Calming if you look at it right.
We gotta make people want to use the Underground online somehow, so let's have the Champion lead with a really cool-looking Pokémon that also has no weaknesses so people will want it, and then lock it behind an online system that will inevitably be rendered obsolete! Sure, people playing this game 10 years from now will hate us for it, but that's their fault for wanting to play our old games when they should be buying our new games!
ugly was a bit of a joke, but I still think most were not that interesting of additions. In fact, I think your list was very interesting so I hope you don't mind I reply with my own opinions of them
I find weavile doesn't change things enough and doesn't improve on any of the flaws (that I believe are flaws) of sneasel, which are its lack of connection with the ice type, and its rather uninspired concept (which is sad, because it's based on some very cool yokai). Therefore, I find it a pretty worthless addition. The only point it has is for being an edgy pokémon that doesn't look ridiculous.
I think gallade is just straight-up ugly, but I'm not a fan of the original ralts line either. Too humanoid for me.
While I don't exactly care much about the mob boss look, it always felt like a wasted opportunity to not expand on its witch side, which is much more interesting in my opinion. The only thing connecting the two is the hats, which feel like a cop-out. 3/10 I just don't care about it it looks really funny though
Finally some good fucking food
I wish it wasn't just "porygon 2 but the body parts are out of place" and they did a biiit more with the malware stuff. You don't have to go full evil glitch abomination but it would certainly make it stand out more from porygon 2. It feels very forgettable because of that for me
In all fairness, there is another Johto Pokemon that gained an evolution in gen 4 that also evolves via Dusk Stone and is based on witches; Misdreavus & Mismagius, who are essentially counterparts to Murkrow & Honchkrow. It would be strange and possibly a little confusing if they were both based of witches
Also as an aside note, Mismagius’ BST is 60/60/60/105/105/105 which, considering its witchcraft schtick, is a really neat touch
So this is one of the littlest things in Pokémon that could annoy anybody but after learning this I’m somewhat astounded more than anything else.
Remember Early Bird? One of those abilities introduced in Gen III which Game Freak realised was comparably pretty weak and decided to never give to any future Pokémon, because everything with Early Bird preferred another ability (besides Kangaskhan who received Scrappy in Gen IV and immediately opted for that). Well guess what, they actually did give it to one more Pokémon and you probably can’t say who it is because it’s also never used it...
...yeah Sunkern and Sunflora have Early Bird as their hidden ability. Y’know, that mechanic used to buff older generation Pokémon with strong abilities to try and fight power creep, and even to give lots of Pokémon signature abilities. They decided to give one of the weakest Pokémon in history, and potentially THE worst fully evolved Pokémon that isn’t a gimmick, the ability that they created when abilities were first implemented and then discontinued because it was too weak.
Not that it doesn’t fit thematically — Sunkern is usually a morning exclusive encounter — but they could at the very least give Sunkern Early Bird and Sunflora something more powerful. But nope, they can’t give the slow, frail sunflower a break.
The worst part is that I was thinking about Early Bird because I actually think it's an interesting ability that could have good use. A couple of Pokémon with Shed Skin use Rest without Sleep Talk, and Early Bird is a more consistent version of that strategy. But they've only ever given it to Pokémon very poorly equipped to use that strategy -- generally nothing that can or would want to use Curse, Bulk Up or Calm Mind for example. And Sunflora is definitely not the Pokémon that would be able to carry out this strategy, and when it already has Solar Power they can't have thought that this was a good addition.
Remember Early Bird? One of those abilities introduced in Gen III which Game Freak realised was comparably pretty weak and decided to never give to any future Pokémon, because everything with Early Bird preferred another ability (besides Kangaskhan who received Scrappy in Gen IV and immediately opted for that). Well guess what, they actually did give it to one more Pokémon and you probably can’t say who it is because it’s also never used it...
...yeah Sunkern and Sunflora have Early Bird as their hidden ability. Y’know, that mechanic used to buff older generation Pokémon with strong abilities to try and fight power creep, and even to give lots of Pokémon signature abilities. They decided to give one of the weakest Pokémon in history, and potentially THE worst fully evolved Pokémon that isn’t a gimmick, the ability that they created when abilities were first implemented and then discontinued because it was too weak.
Not that it doesn’t fit thematically — Sunkern is usually a morning exclusive encounter — but they could at the very least give Sunkern Early Bird and Sunflora something more powerful. But nope, they can’t give the slow, frail sunflower a break.
The worst part is that I was thinking about Early Bird because I actually think it's an interesting ability that could have good use. A couple of Pokémon with Shed Skin use Rest without Sleep Talk, and Early Bird is a more consistent version of that strategy. But they've only ever given it to Pokémon very poorly equipped to use that strategy -- generally nothing that can or would want to use Curse, Bulk Up or Calm Mind for example. And Sunflora is definitely not the Pokémon that would be able to carry out this strategy, and when it already has Solar Power they can't have thought that this was a good addition.
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The Mind Electric
Calming if you look at it right.
Honestly, looking at Honchkrow, the hat looks more like a witch hat to me than a mobster hat. Maybe that's just because I don't really associate the mob with a specific kind of hat, or maybe it's got something to do with me genuinely not realizing that Honchkrow is supposed to be a mob boss until I heard it from someone else somewhere.
you could give sunflora wonder guard, protean or pure power and it'd probably still be untiered without multiple buffs (stats, moves, ability), so gamefreak probably decided to go with the thematic version instead. I think they know sunkern (and sunflora) are pretty bad, considering they made a joke out of it by giving it some of the best pokeathlon stats
Mismagius should have taken a different inspiration since witch isn't actually really close to the original concept of misdreavus. So that's another mediocre gen 4 evo to the list
Yeah, GF missed out on making a lot of English/Medieval/general European mythical creatures into Pokemon:
- English: Cockatrice/Basilisk, Gremlin, Flibbertigibbet, Fairy Knight, Jenny Greenteeth/Peg Powler/Grindylow, Stone Tape, Spring-heeled Jack, Wight, Habetrot, Salisbury Hare, Screaming Skull, Tiddy Mun, Jack-in-Irons, Yallery Brown, Canvey Island Monster, The Queen's Beasts, Robin Hood, Twrch Trwyth, Cavall, Billy Blind, Cauld Lad of Hylton, Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain, Merlin, Colt Pixie, Elfshot/Elf-arrow, Cottingley Faeries, Toadman, Beast of Tenby, Apple Tree Man
- French: Tarasque, Peluda, Barbegazi (& Swiss), Gargouille, Guivre, Beast of Gevaudan, Ankou, Cheval Mallet/Gauvin, Dames Blanches, Bugul Noz
- Medieval: Myrmecoleon, Panther (legendary creature), Muscaliet, Leontophone, Ypotryll, Echeneis, Calygreyhound, Ichneumon, Jasconius, Questing Beast, Piroboli Rocks/Fire Stones, Peridexion Tree, Abarimon/Nuli, Alphyn, Barnacle Geese, Satyrus, Enfield, Forest Bull, Hircocervus, Hydrus/Hydros, Hypnalis, Jaculus, Monoceros, Musimon, Orphan Bird, Pard, Reichsadler, Scitalis, Sea-bee, Seps, Struthopodes, Undine, Loathly Lady, The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh, Theow, Philosopher's Stone, Toadstone/Batrachit, Hydrus (legendary creature), Dry Tree, Avalerion, Pantheon (mythical creature), Panotti/Pandi, Brazen Head
- European: Bicorn & Chichevache, Allocamelus, Amphiptere, Jaculus, Sandman, Bluecap/Knockers/Coblynau, Melusine, Skrat, Black Annis/Agnes, Killmoulis, Seven-league Boots, Vampire Watermelons/Pumpkins, Tatzelwurm, Valþjófsstaður Door/Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, Witte Wieven, Three Hares, Grateful Dead (folklore)
- Celtic: Leprechaun, Dullahan, Kilkenny Cat, Salmon of Knowledge, Galtzagorriak, Beithir, Fachen, Fuath, Dunnie, Gigelorum, Yan-gant-y-tan, Spriggan, Alp-luachra, Fear Gorta/Hungry Grass, Cabbit, Welsh Dragon/White Dragon, Cirein-croin, Water Leaper, Cat Sith, Lavellan, Shellycoat, Afanc, Bugul Noz, Cu Sith, Dobhar-chu, Fachen, Fuath, Pictish Beast, Blodeuwedd, Muc-sheilche, Fern Flower, Failinis, Enbarr, Aibell, Hooded Spirits, Four Treasures of the Tuatha De Danann, Adar Rhiannon, Afanc/Addanc, Water Leaper/Llamhigyn Y Dwr, Enbarr, Failinis, Leanan Sidhe, Ellen Trechend, Joint-eater, Arkan Sonney
To be fair, GF not only takes mythical creatures of a region into account but also the local wildlife, iconic objects & structures, pop culture iconography, & notable historical events. I'm sure every Gen VIII Pokemon is a reference to the UK in some way, and the mythical creatures they did do are likely the most notable (all the imps/goblins/trolls that Impidimp family represents, magic/princesses/witches Hattena family represents, etc..). If I were to pick one from the list though, I think the Queen's Beasts would have made for a neat set of Pokemon, they wouldn't be obviously related so GF was free to design them how they like but would not only include a few additional mythical creatures but some other animals important to England: this includes Lions (two in fact) and the Unicorn.
Though that's not to say wolves aren't notable animals to the English. There are wolves in heraldry, even an instance of royalty using it (Edward the IV, along with the White Lion). Notably I think it's this the wolves in heraldry that GF took note of. A common depiction of the wolf just shows its head (just like the Sword & Shield logos), it's said to symbolize the rewards of perseverance in long sieges (like battling a skeletal space dragon) or hard industry (Galar is heavily industrialized with a focus on metal; the Wolves themselves become part Steel-type).
Also, while a Lion & Unicorn would make sense, GF I don't think thought that far ahead that Galar would be based on the UK when they came up with Solgaleo & Lunala. When they came up with Solgaleo and Lunala they were focused on picking Pokemon that could represent the sun/day and moon/night. A bat for moon/night was obvious as well as finding some mythical bats to associate it with, but the sun/day I could see them having problems with. However there's been several cases where lions have been associated with the sun (be it from symbols in Alchemy to many modern day franchises having a a "sun/fire mane lion") that GF decided to do it themselves. Then when it came time to make the Mascot Legendaries for Galar, well, they already did a lion so decided to go out-of-the-box.
Inteleon does feel like a really sharp turn for the Sobble line as nothing really points to it. Sobble is a shy and cowardly chameleon that tears make you cry & Drizzile is an emo teen that set up traps in its territory. The emotion theme that plays in part of their design does seem to point toward a Shakespeare/English theater final evo, and it would have fit better with the other entertainment-basis of the other two Galar final starters (I guess you could argue it does as it's likely more of a reference to James Bond than general spies and James Bond is a popular movie franchise, though that's stretching it especially when a Shakespeare/English theater-theme would get that point across better).
Here ya go.
With how easy they've made getting Spiritomb in other games, I'd hope they would cut the "needing to talk with 32 people" and instead just have you get the Stone by digging it up from the underground, throwing it into the well, and maybe have to wait a day/night when the well will start glowing and it'll initiate an encounter with Spiritomb.
Gallade and Froslass really bug me. Branching evolution is cool, I'm glad they brought that back in gen IV. But gender-locking one fork of the evolution is just dumb. Either make it so that all male Ralts become Gallade and all female Ralts become Gardevoir, or (my preference), let female Ralts become Gallade as well. This refusal to commit just makes GF seem silly.
Yeah I always found this weird and unnecessary. I’m sure there was some logic behind it at the time but is just poor design.
I actually didn't know about the Queen's Beasts! Shows what I know about my own culture lol, I'm gonna blame that on my general disinterest in the Royal Family
Yeah SWSH really did Britain well with it's Pokemon, even if there are a few weak designs like Stonjouner and Peter Griffin Squirrel, I hope they keep it up with gen 9 and beyond. I still don't know why they'd make Zarude a monkey mythical considering the considerable lack of monkeys in England, but that's a topic for another day
The legendary dogs have all these ties to English history and they still end up being some of the blandest legendries lol
But yeah, it's probably better they chose Solgaleo for gen 7 since there aren't that many easy links to the sun - I can only think of roosters and scarab beetles because of the Egyptian myth of Khepri rolling the sun and that. The Mnevis bull probably would've been a cool inspiration, but that's from Egyptian mythos, and they'd probably want to keep within Hawaiian's culture or just go with universal associations to the sun
Looking at the Queen's Beasts, maybe a Unicorn and Yale would work? Or a Griffin? Either way, even if the dogs do have connections to English history I still just find the incorporation of the sword and shield to be pretty lazy imo. Zamazenta does a little better with it since the shield is an actual part of it's body while Zacian is just.. Carrying a sword, but that's still just my opinion. They could've done a whole lot worse, but they also could've done a whole lot better
Continuing on with the theme of Design Choices GF Made A Little Too Early, they should've made Intelleon be the water starter with Protean. Sniper makes sense flavour-wise, but Protean is more competitively viable and ties the whole family together with Sobble being able to become invisible. Sobble as a whole is a very strange Pokemon, since each stage suggests something entirely different (crybaby that can turn invisible > emo can make water balloons and set traps > secret spy sniper). Seems really misdirected.
Drizzile gives off massive theatre kid vibes as well, so I don't have a clue what they were thinking with Intelleon
Possibly an English monkey cryptid. From Bulbapedia:
TBF, Bulbapedia's speculates that one of Solgaleo's possible origins are Egyption based:
Now, the latter basis suggestions (note that for a while GF were on a bit of an "alchemy" kick), though compared to Lunala who has a possible Hawaiian bat god to be base on, Solgaleo does stick out.
Looking through the list of Hawaiian gods, they could have based the Sun one on Kamapua'a. Kamapua'a is a hog-man (though Pokemon would have just made it a full hog, probably a long tusked boar) that was a fertility god and lover of Pele the Goddess of Volcanoes (probably could have combined the two together making a molten boar). And from there, like possibly with Lunala, they could have added additional themes from other pig gods or mythical pigs (like Moccus, Gullinbursti, & Calydonian Boar).
Considering Galar is based on the UK, if they made one of the Legends a dragon I wouldn't argue against it. Heck, with Zamazenta possibly being based on King Arthur Pendragon would have been quite fitting. Of course they'd probably have to redesign Eternatus then and, dare I say, make the pseudo Legendary into something else other than a dragon.
I'm currently playing through Gates to Infinity and I've started the final third of the game AKA about to enter the Glacier Palace for the second time and there are two things that have annoyed me so far. One of them is some of the bad gameplay changes (especially having played Super and Rescue Team DX beforehand), but that's not what I want to talk about.
It's the story.
Do I find it bad? No, no way! I like it, it's certainly no slouch to Explorers and Super. But there is something that annoys me and that it does not exactly have to do with the story itself... it's that you can have a look at the real world situation right now... and there are some parts of the story that turn out to be relatable, especially with how the Post Town NPCs act. It's relatable... but it shouldn't be!
It's the story.
Do I find it bad? No, no way! I like it, it's certainly no slouch to Explorers and Super. But there is something that annoys me and that it does not exactly have to do with the story itself... it's that you can have a look at the real world situation right now... and there are some parts of the story that turn out to be relatable, especially with how the Post Town NPCs act. It's relatable... but it shouldn't be!
I find GTI's story better than Super's (especially since Super literally is a rehash of it), but the NPC note is...interesting. I've seen memes with Quagsire if I remember
Finished Diamond a second time now, and I was kinda cheating by trading over rare items to the games that mattered and to speed up gameplay by turning the PBR Pikachu from the Platinum Game into an HM Slave and Lucky Egg to get some EXP boosts.
This time I didn't make the 3 Emotion Pokemon faint like last time expecting them to respond after beating the Pokemon league and got myself a servicable Impish Uxie and Naive Azelf (no 31 iv but close enough).
Now Mesprit... arguably the worst one of the three convinced me that Synchronize doesn't work on Roaming Pokemon in DP. I tried it on Cresselia last time, I thought swapping Pokemon after triggering the roamer is responsable for the wrong nature. Nope, Synchronize just doesn't seem to work.
My Abra is Modest. After 20 encounters or so I only got 1 Modest Mesprit. Maybe I happened to be unlucky because 50% doesn't mean I get every two tries, but you know... I would be fine with Modest, Timid, Quiet, Relaxed or even Jolly as long it has decent ivs.... but I got Hardy or Lax most at the time and only these natures get 31 iv in speed or attack. I got a careful one with 31 SpA iv. That thing is trolling me almost as hard as the legendary beast back when I was a kid in Pokemon Gold.
Edit: Just now I got a Modest one with 28 Spe and 30 Spa ivs. The game really loves to troll me.
This time I didn't make the 3 Emotion Pokemon faint like last time expecting them to respond after beating the Pokemon league and got myself a servicable Impish Uxie and Naive Azelf (no 31 iv but close enough).
Now Mesprit... arguably the worst one of the three convinced me that Synchronize doesn't work on Roaming Pokemon in DP. I tried it on Cresselia last time, I thought swapping Pokemon after triggering the roamer is responsable for the wrong nature. Nope, Synchronize just doesn't seem to work.
My Abra is Modest. After 20 encounters or so I only got 1 Modest Mesprit. Maybe I happened to be unlucky because 50% doesn't mean I get every two tries, but you know... I would be fine with Modest, Timid, Quiet, Relaxed or even Jolly as long it has decent ivs.... but I got Hardy or Lax most at the time and only these natures get 31 iv in speed or attack. I got a careful one with 31 SpA iv. That thing is trolling me almost as hard as the legendary beast back when I was a kid in Pokemon Gold.
Edit: Just now I got a Modest one with 28 Spe and 30 Spa ivs. The game really loves to troll me.
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Synchronize has never, to my knowledge, worked on roamers.
Late reply, but I guess this is one way to look at it. Still, I don't agree completely. While Farfetch'd might seem outclassed by Fearow, I still think it has a specific niche in R/B. It has access to some things that Fearow are missing. First, and as I mentioned earlier, boosted Exp. From what I remember back from when I played through R/B in the past, this made a pretty big difference as it allowed you to grind a lot easier. And as said, Farfetch'd gets Slash, which Fearow doesn't. Farfetch'd also learns Swords Dance, which Fearow doesn't get either. And Cut, which means it can do some extra side-work as a HM slave, which Fearow can't (apart from Fly).
In comparison, Fearow does get Drill Peck, that's true. And while it can learn a bunch of good Normal-type moves through TM, none of them are optimal. Take Down and Double-Edge cause recoil, Razor Wind requires charging and Rage is broken in an idiotic way. Hyper Beam is great, but it is expensive, has low PP, and if it fails to KO, it requires a turn to recharge afterwards. Fearow learns Swift, which is worse than Slash, but I suppose it should still be decent enough. Other than that, it does not learn Body Slam through TM (though if you ask me, it would have been a waste to teach that move to Fearow), and it only gets Fury Attack through level-up.
If anything, I feel that Fearow is designed to be a worse Dodrio, as Dodrio has higher Attack and Defense at the cost of having slightly lower HP and Special (of which the latter doesn't matter anyway) and equal Speed. Dodrio also learns Tri Attack through level up, which is a great Normal-type attacking move. The big negative for Dodrio is that it is available late, while Fearow is available early. But if you can wait a little, your reward is the best bird! I also think that while Farfetch'd might not be the best Kanto bird, it defintely has a specific niche with Slash, Swords Dance and Cut. That said, it doesn't learn Slash until level 39 in Gen 1, which is fairly late. Still, I remember it being pretty good when I used it on my in-game teams in R/B.
I will also admit that I might be a bit biased here as I like Dodrio and Farfetch'd but I am not overly fond of Fearow. Or Pidgeot, for that matter. Pidgeotto is cool though. A minor annoyance of mine is that I dislike how Pidgeotto loses all of its coolness when it evolves into Pidgeot. I feel that Mega Pidgeot does nothing to improve upon it either, in terms of design at least.
Guess I should post some actual, more serious annoyances of my own while I am here. There are a very large number of things that I dislike about HG/SS, so I might as well post some of them here just to get them out of my head. In the past, I had planned to make a long post featuring all of these things, but I have decided to not do so because it feels pointless and I dislike creating too much negativity. Instead, here are two small things that annoy me about HG/SS.
First of all, I find it really annoying how you can't Fly between Johto and Kanto in HG/SS. When going from one region to the other, you have to do a middle landing at either Victory Road or the Pokémon League (alternatively Mt. Silver or New Bark Town when you are going from Johto to Kanto) instead of being able to fly all the way to where you want in the other region in just one go. I can understand why this wasn't possible in G/S/C, these games had technical limitations and the map was split in two. But in HG/SS? I just can't find any reasonable explanation. There shouldn't be any technical limits for these games, and unlike in the originals, they have both regions on the same map. As for some in-universe explanation, such as "Pokémon can't fly too long distances at once without getting too tired" or something, I don't think it makes sense either. You can fly from the Safari Zone to New Bark Town without issues, but flying from New Bark Town to Pallet is too much? I'm not buying that. The only other alternative I can think of is that they wanted to encourage players to take the train (or boat) instead when traveling between the regions. But those alternatives are a lot less convenient and take longer time compared to flying, so it doesn't really work very well. So, unless there is some technical limitation here that I am unaware of, this feels like bad gameplay done on purpose. Just like in many other instances in HG/SS, sadly.
As for the second thing... I am currently playing HeartGold, farming Yellow Apricorns so I can get Moon Balls for a future capture project. I decided to check if they sell them at the Pokéathlon, since they do so on some days. And today is Friday, so they are being sold there! I had no Pokéathlon points on the game, so I participated in two Pokéathlon courses to get some points... speaking of which, I am not super fond of the Pokéathlon. Some events are quite okay, almost fun even, while others are complete and utter garbage. I have mixed views on it on the whole, it is not the worst minigame in the series but far from the best, I think it is highly overrated though. But that's not what I wanted to talk about. After I had obtained some points, I went to buy some Yellow Apricorns... except that it seems like it is only possible to buy one of each specific item at the Pokéathlon every day. So that's annoying. After getting one Yellow Apricorn today, I can't get another one until Tuesday, which is when they will sell me another one... I have expected this to take some time, but honestly, I think I'll just stick to farming Apricorns from trees. While it is also a bit annoying for multiple reasons, I defintely prefer it over the idiotic way they are being handled at the Pokéathlon.
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Just finished Detective Pikachu. Fun movie, but... Aside from Greninja (Who is, well, Greninja) and little else every Pokémon that mattered is from Gen 1. Again.
I'm getting tired of this Kanto pandering. It's not even a main game thing only! Like:
Quest: Gen 1 only
Smile: Gen 1 only again. Despite being aimed at little kids. Who have no Gen 1 nostalgia.
Mystery Dungeon DX: Gen 1 gets the most starters.
Unite: Gen 1 outdoes the other seven.
Smash: Gen 1 has more playable characters and Spirits than the other seven. Again.
Anime: All the Gen 7 movies were nostalgic: A redux of Ash starting out, a movie just with Gen 1 and 2 Pokémon, and ademake remake of the first movie. One is fine, but three? Really?
Seriously, was the Gen 5 backlash so bad The Pokémon Company went full Genwunner? Because fanart tells me Japan likes Gen 5 the most...
I'm getting tired of this Kanto pandering. It's not even a main game thing only! Like:
Quest: Gen 1 only
Smile: Gen 1 only again. Despite being aimed at little kids. Who have no Gen 1 nostalgia.
Mystery Dungeon DX: Gen 1 gets the most starters.
Unite: Gen 1 outdoes the other seven.
Smash: Gen 1 has more playable characters and Spirits than the other seven. Again.
Anime: All the Gen 7 movies were nostalgic: A redux of Ash starting out, a movie just with Gen 1 and 2 Pokémon, and a
Seriously, was the Gen 5 backlash so bad The Pokémon Company went full Genwunner? Because fanart tells me Japan likes Gen 5 the most...
Ah yes, my favorite Gen 1 Pokemon: Torterra, Aipom, and maybe Morelull (debatably mattered).
From what I remember, that movie didn't have a ton of Pokemon that mattered in the first place (as it should, cramming too many Pokemon into the plot would make for a very messy plot)
Pikachu
Mewtwo
Psyduck
Aipom
Charizard
Greninja
Torterra
Bulbasaur (?)
Morelull (?)
Like yeah most of those are still Kanto but they're also some of the most popular Pokemon across all generations so of course they're going to be featured prominently.
From what I remember, that movie didn't have a ton of Pokemon that mattered in the first place (as it should, cramming too many Pokemon into the plot would make for a very messy plot)
Pikachu
Mewtwo
Psyduck
Aipom
Charizard
Greninja
Torterra
Bulbasaur (?)
Morelull (?)
Like yeah most of those are still Kanto but they're also some of the most popular Pokemon across all generations so of course they're going to be featured prominently.
I wouldn't count this one as it's the exact same starter list as the original. It is true there are all but one of the non-traditional starters are Gen I Pokémon, the only exception being Skitty (for whatever reason), but the original game was released long before this recent pandering.
I don't really think the incessant Gen 1 pandering is necessarily because of Gen 5 or any backlash and more that they just want their games to have international, worldwide appeal to all kinds people and that Gen 1 is the most marketable to even the most casual of Pokemon fans, let alone people who only have minimal knowledge of Pokemon.
X and Y went pretty hard on the Gen 1 nostalgia because it was the first mainline game that had an international release on the same day, so they wanted to push the worldwide appeal by putting in all of the Kanto nostalgia so even the most casual of Pokemon fans would buy it. Gen 1's Pokemon are the most well known and thus the most intuitive mons to come to mind when people think of Pokemon, even for someone who at most has basic knowledge of Pokemon. The Gen 1 appeal was to play on that international appeal in the sense that X and Y's schitck was that everyone in the world got it at the same time, and players all around the world played it at once and together with each other, so it was essentially marketed as something that would be world-uniting.
I think subsequent games have been trying to play on that ever since with them continuing to be worldwide releases and they've admittedly been going too far with it, but the whole idea with the recent Gen 1 overexposure I imagine is them trying to push Pokemon as a worldwide phenomenon again, especially with X and Y's rise in Pokemania and the Pokemania that has continued to persist since.
X and Y went pretty hard on the Gen 1 nostalgia because it was the first mainline game that had an international release on the same day, so they wanted to push the worldwide appeal by putting in all of the Kanto nostalgia so even the most casual of Pokemon fans would buy it. Gen 1's Pokemon are the most well known and thus the most intuitive mons to come to mind when people think of Pokemon, even for someone who at most has basic knowledge of Pokemon. The Gen 1 appeal was to play on that international appeal in the sense that X and Y's schitck was that everyone in the world got it at the same time, and players all around the world played it at once and together with each other, so it was essentially marketed as something that would be world-uniting.
I think subsequent games have been trying to play on that ever since with them continuing to be worldwide releases and they've admittedly been going too far with it, but the whole idea with the recent Gen 1 overexposure I imagine is them trying to push Pokemon as a worldwide phenomenon again, especially with X and Y's rise in Pokemania and the Pokemania that has continued to persist since.
While I would also love for more spotlights to be shined on recent Pokemon and have them included in more media, the Kanto pandering is understandable from a marketing perspective and definitely not a uniquely Pokemon "problem." I'd wager that most franchises from 20-30 years that are still active currently are a rehash of their respective "Gen 1," especially in ancillary media. Many of these properties have taken an "expanded universe" approach in which characters from later iterations are included in roles of varying depth and focus, and introduce some original characters, but the stories still primarily focus on the old well-known characters to drawn in people who were familiar with the franchise but haven't been following it. A few examples:
- Transformers: following the original run the series/toyline made a big change and introduced Beast Wars (and the related Beast Machines), in which the transformers took on animal modes (which looked organic and not robotic in "beast mode," unlike, e.g., the Dinobots in Gen 1) which drew from the original series in having many characters named after the originals but otherwise having their own characterizations. Even then, the show did ultimately tie its lore back to the original series. Japan localized the Canadian-produced TV show but also developed its own Beast Wars animes with all new characters. Following the Beast Wars era the toyline pivoted back to vehicle modes and introduced new characters but with new iterations of "Optimus" and "Megatron," as well as some other well-known Gen 1 characters. Following this was Transformers: Energon trilogy which again introduced many new characters and gimmicks but also had iterations of Optimus, Megatron, Starscream, etc. After this it seems like many of the recent stories have been rehash after rehash of the Autobot vs. Decepticon war, often starting with a contrived reason to end up on Earth and interact with squishy humans who prove to be valuable to the Autobots' war effort, but sometimes starting before the war. The most recent Netflix show takes this latter approach while mostly follows the status quo of Optimus-led Autobots vs. Megatron's evil Decepticons, but the next season will introduce Beast Wars characters (who have mostly played side roles in recent media). There was a good run of the IDW comics which, while still focusing on old well-known characters, disrupted the status quo and actually had the war end and explored post-war life, but that run ended and it sounds like the new run is back to rehashing the "leading up to the war" era again.
- Power Rangers: while it seems like the Power Rangers TV show has continued to introduce brand new characters every season, with occasional connections to earlier seasons, other media is predominantly based on the original Power Rangers in an expanded universe setting. The TV show is perhaps then most analogous to the games, with the format mostly staying the same (a team of rangers with Zords versus monsters of the week ~ 8 challenges, evil team, become champion) with new characters and powers (~ new pokemon). The current run of the comics appears to have two branches, one based on the 2nd season squad of Power Rangers with some OC as the Green Ranger vs. the original villains and another based on the original Red, Yellow, and Black ranger off in space on a mission (with an alternate universe evil deposed dictator version of Tommy). In the previous series set in the same continuity before these two launched there was a multiverse-type thing in which Power Rangers from other TV seasons appeared, but I don't know if any have shown up in the current run. There was apparently also a video game based on this multiverse run of the comics.
- Digimon: Youtube keeps trying to recommend me clips of some new Digimon show that is based on the original characters, and to the extent that I've watched any of them it's only because I recognize the characters. My familiarity with anything passed the... 4th season? The one where they finally went "screw it, just make the humans turn into Digimon," is negligible.
(*An exception to this seems to be a certain clade of Transformers fans who appear to only want TF media to be a continuation of the original cartoon universe in perpetuity)