(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[Bakugames]

Been saying all this for years and finally everyone sees the light.

I'm moved to tears.

Hey cmon I've been hating on the gen 5 sprites for years too smh
Mostly because a lot of sprites were uncomfortable for me to see for too long. I have bad AND sensitive eyes so you can see the issue here.
I hate super animated things because they easily make me feel sick

 

[Siggu]

I agree on that minor gripe about the animated Gen V sprites for pre-Gen V Pokémon. It was an odd decision to take already-existing sprites to make the animation. I don't really care much about this at the end of the day, though, but it's very clear.

 

[R_N]

I agree on that minor gripe about the animated Gen V sprites for pre-Gen V Pokémon. It was an odd decision to take already-existing sprites to make the animation. I don't really care much about this at the end of the day, though, but it's very clear.

Any reused sprites were likely a time or cost saving measure. If the sprite worked as-is or with minor tweaks, then there's no reason not to reuse it and then figure out how it'd animate from there.

Makes sense to me.

 

[Low-Key]

It's probably just me, but I hate how I keep thinking that Floatzel is Buizel and Buizel is Floatzel.


If you gave me these 2 Pokemon and told me what their names are, I would definitely get mixed up somewhere. Floatzel definitely seems like an appropriate name for the right one, and Buizel is also an appropriate name for the left one. Instead, the left one is Floatzel and the right one is Buizel. I keep getting them mixed up and I hate this.

 

[R_N]

If it helps any buizel, with the sack inflated and in water, is more meant to resemble a buoy. The wide "base" (the inflatable sac) and then the tal point of the head

Floatzel is meant to sort of resemble an inflatable raft: something you'd float on a body of water on

 

[Sonikku A]

Something that bugs me is how Gen 3 went through 3 stages graphically apparently for mons, yet remnants of earlier stages still pop up randomly, creating inconsistencies
The following are theories!
So we'll start with the first stage with one of the earliest designed Hoenn mons, Wailmer 2001 Corocoro

In this stage the first 9 mons were shown. Mons had no black in outlines, and shading was very banded for front sprites. Colors also were more saturated, and a good chunk of battle effects were done (except Surf and Reflect)
Incidentally, this period was also when the berryshop was implemented. And noticeably in the final berry screen...

There's no black outlines! Though these were most likely done at a later stage compared to 2001 battle effects given more muted colors
Which we'll bring up on. The later stage was probably when GF noticed that the GBA screen....was really bad
So focus shifted to the GC player. Some mons were updated to the same artstyle until it changed again, and final incidentally still had some of them use that style.

Others include:
Manectric back, Surskit, Masquerain back, Seedot, Baltoy, Claydol, and Duskclops back
I would estimate this style was kept for a while until late 2001/early 2002, though the lack of visuals in leaks don't help

Note: Player Trainer sprites seem to have been finished early. They barely changed in dev

And then ignoring sprite shading styles, you have remnants of earlier mon designs in sprites compared to art (also including Pinball)

-Delcatty having a large dot on its head
-Nosepass
-Blue Salamence
-Metang having notches for back
-Walrein's huge nose
-Electrike's missing spikes for back
-Linoone's tail being properly connected instead of looking like a flat sheet

And then despite GSC having the Gen 1 retcons, many still were in RS or RS Pinball

-White belly Weedle
-4 fingered Mr Mime, Haunter, and Poliwhirl
-Nidoqueen fangs
-brown fingered Graveler with grey body for Pinball

And Venomoth potentially if its palette indicates the yellow spots were planned

And then there's the fact that OW sprites were based heavily on Gen 2 Trainer sprites, then were never updated....

Gen 3 is a mess, yet I love it

 

[QuentinQuonce]

In GSC, the old lady who gives you TM37, Sandstorm, warns you that "it's a move that damages both Pokemon on the field. It's for advanced trainers only. Use it if you dare. Good luck!"

Makes sense; it's a high-risk, high-return strategy that's not suited to inexperienced players. What she neglects to mention is that it damages both Pokemon on the field unless they're Rock, Ground, or Steel type! I thought Rock, Ground, and Steel's immunity to Sandstorm was something added in Gen III; it wasn't until literal years later that I discovered it was the case in Gen II as well. That one's on me because I don't think I ever used it. Still. This was at least fixed in HGSS.

 

[Siggu]

In GSC, the old lady who gives you TM37, Sandstorm, warns you that "it's a move that damages both Pokemon on the field. It's for advanced trainers only. Use it if you dare. Good luck!"

Makes sense; it's a high-risk, high-return strategy that's not suited to inexperienced players. What she neglects to mention is that it damages both Pokemon on the field unless they're Rock, Ground, or Steel type! I thought Rock, Ground, and Steel's immunity to Sandstorm was something added in Gen III; it wasn't until literal years later that I discovered it was the case in Gen II as well. That one's on me because I don't think I ever used it. Still. This was at least fixed in HGSS.

To be fair, that's something that could be chalked up to the entire series. I think it's a major UX flaw that a lot of mechanics are improperly explained, if at all (e.g. Water Bubble's description completely omitting the 100% damage increase for Water-type moves).

Pokémon (and any similar game for that matter) should have something like the Wormopedia that was included in Worms World Party. Sure, it's nice to have website like Smogon itself to get to know how some things work, but it shouldn't be the only way...

It doesn't have to go overly technical, but it should explain how things work.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

To be fair, that's something that could be chalked up to the entire series. I think it's a major UX flaw that a lot of mechanics are improperly explained, if at all (e.g. Water Bubble's description completely omitting the 100% damage increase for Water-type moves).

Pokémon (and any similar game for that matter) should have something like the Wormopedia that was included in Worms World Party. Sure, it's nice to have website like Smogon itself to get to know how some things work, but it shouldn't be the only way...

It doesn't have to go overly technical, but it should explain how things work.

Yeah, you're right. The Gen I games have no way whatsoever to explain what various moves do iirc (except Stadium but that's hardly practical) which is a horrific developmental oversight.

Even in later generations the move descriptions are often laughably simplistic, and the menu options and suchlike aren't always intuitive. My friend who's a casual fan at best played White, and every single time one of her Pokemon learned a new move she turned to me and asked "what does [move] do?" I pointed out that there was an option to view what they do, but it wasn't obvious to her.

 

[R_N]

For what it's worth, I think these days they're a lot better about it, probably due to years of expanded character limits.
Sandstorm's current description: A five-turn sandstorm is summoned to hurt all combatants except Rock, Ground, and Steel types. It raises the Sp. Def stat of Rock types.

This is basically everything you need to know.

Water Bubble feels the most egregious considering it still wasn't updated in gen 8, however.

 

[Worldie]

Water Bubble feels the most egregious considering it still wasn't updated in gen 8, however.

Meanwhile I believe they glissed mentioning that certain abilities arbitrarly ignore Intimidate (which, to be fair, is 100% a competitive oriented shenenigan, but it's also not mentioned nontheless)

(To be fair I'm a bit divided on these cases, as "hidden interactions", like abilities having effects on the wild pokemon you find, are cool to find out, but also often can only actually be found out via datamining so at this point might as well just have full descriptions... and don't get me started on IV/EVs )

 

[mertyville]

Generation 5 has the largest amount of new Pokemon introduced, yet, Game Freak didn't give any of them a Mega Evolution but Audino, and that happens to be arguably the worst Mega Pokemon of them all.

I mean I guess I get that Unova Pokemon doesn't have a lot of bad Pokemon or perhaps it lacks certain hype generating Pokemon that could advertise Megas like Mewtwo, but I think that would be more reasonable over giving Slowbro a mega.
Don't get me wrong, I love Mega Slowbro's design. It's hilarious and it reminds me of something I saw somewhere but can't put my finger on it. (No, not chocolate cream horns.)
Slowbro is like a perfectly fine Pokemon and not something people think need a buff. Aside there being no ingame use for Slowbro since Hoenn has no wild Slowpoke if I recall correctly.

Couldn't they just give that Evil Zebra Pokemon a Mega? That looks like easy to improve the design and give some kind of reasonable buff.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Generation 5 has the largest amount of new Pokemon introduced, yet, Game Freak didn't give any of them a Mega Evolution but Audino, and that happens to be arguably the worst Mega Pokemon of them all.

I mean I guess I get that Unova Pokemon doesn't have a lot of bad Pokemon or perhaps it lacks certain hype generating Pokemon that could advertise Megas like Mewtwo, but I think that would be more reasonable over giving Slowbro a mega.
Don't get me wrong, I love Mega Slowbro's design. It's hilarious and it reminds me of something I saw somewhere but can't put my finger on it. (No, not chocolate cream horns.)
Slowbro is like a perfectly fine Pokemon and not something people think need a buff. Aside there being no ingame use for Slowbro since Hoenn has no wild Slowpoke if I recall correctly.

Couldn't they just give that Evil Zebra Pokemon a Mega? That looks like easy to improve the design and give some kind of reasonable buff.

Audino was horrible and now it's going to be unlikely for it to get a legit evo outside of a regional evo.

It lost on all fronts. Tbh, all Megas that are tied to non 3rd stage mons are instant mistakes.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Generation 5 has the largest amount of new Pokemon introduced, yet, Game Freak didn't give any of them a Mega Evolution but Audino, and that happens to be arguably the worst Mega Pokemon of them all.

I mean I guess I get that Unova Pokemon doesn't have a lot of bad Pokemon or perhaps it lacks certain hype generating Pokemon that could advertise Megas like Mewtwo, but I think that would be more reasonable over giving Slowbro a mega.
Don't get me wrong, I love Mega Slowbro's design. It's hilarious and it reminds me of something I saw somewhere but can't put my finger on it. (No, not chocolate cream horns.)
Slowbro is like a perfectly fine Pokemon and not something people think need a buff. Aside there being no ingame use for Slowbro since Hoenn has no wild Slowpoke if I recall correctly.

Couldn't they just give that Evil Zebra Pokemon a Mega? That looks like easy to improve the design and give some kind of reasonable buff.

Yeah if they really wanted to give a Mega to some Pokemon from Gen 5 there were way more eligible candidates for sure. You bring up Zebstrika which would've been great with a Mega, but the likes of Excadrill, Scolipede, Whimsicott, Lilligant, Krookodile, Darmanitan, Gothitelle/Reuniclus, Eelektross, Chandelure, Haxorus, Golurk, Bisharp, Braviary, Mandibuzz, Volcarona, and Hydreigon would've had way more interesting Mega Evolutions than Audino, and all of them are much more popular Gen 5 Pokemon than Audino ever was. Especially the latter two, since Hydreigon hasn't really gotten anything amongst its pseudo-legendary brethren.

Audino was horrible and now it's going to be unlikely for it to get a legit evo outside of a regional evo.

It lost on all fronts. Tbh, all Megas that are tied to non 3rd stage mons are instant mistakes.

Its sole purpose is to exist as a means to get tons of EXP quickly anyway so it's not like it would matter either way in the long run xD.

 

[R_N]

Audino was horrible and now it's going to be unlikely for it to get a legit evo outside of a regional evo.

It lost on all fronts. Tbh, all Megas that are tied to non 3rd stage mons are instant mistakes.

It's really frustrating too because the mega is also better than anything a normal evo would ever dream of getting so even if they did decide to go "surprise!here's a Mawile evolution anyway!" it'd just be categorically worse in a way I would not care about if there wasn't min/maxed Huge Power Mega Mawile right there for comparison.

And then on top of all that is the whole "megas aren't guaranteed to come back" so if a particularly uselessPokemon relied on its mega keeps coming back, but the mega doesnt....Just a bunch of frustrating factors

 

[Samtendo09]

Generation 5 has the largest amount of new Pokemon introduced, yet, Game Freak didn't give any of them a Mega Evolution but Audino, and that happens to be arguably the worst Mega Pokemon of them all.

I mean I guess I get that Unova Pokemon doesn't have a lot of bad Pokemon or perhaps it lacks certain hype generating Pokemon that could advertise Megas like Mewtwo, but I think that would be more reasonable over giving Slowbro a mega.
Don't get me wrong, I love Mega Slowbro's design. It's hilarious and it reminds me of something I saw somewhere but can't put my finger on it. (No, not chocolate cream horns.)
Slowbro is like a perfectly fine Pokemon and not something people think need a buff. Aside there being no ingame use for Slowbro since Hoenn has no wild Slowpoke if I recall correctly.

Couldn't they just give that Evil Zebra Pokemon a Mega? That looks like easy to improve the design and give some kind of reasonable buff.

Audino was horrible and now it's going to be unlikely for it to get a legit evo outside of a regional evo.

It lost on all fronts. Tbh, all Megas that are tied to non 3rd stage mons are instant mistakes.

It’s been discussed before but hear me out: The focus on popularity, even to a lesser extent in ORAS, had done more harm than good to Mega Evolution, not helping with a lack of major revisions. And with exception of those with pretty high BST (let’s say 520 or higher) or those already third stage of the evolutionary line, I rather give an evolution than a Mega Evolution, as normal cross-gen evolutions are more “future proofed” compared to the other, unless you have Let’s Go remakes which is the other way around.

Hydreigon is also already pretty powerful on its own as is, so it might cause severe balance issues if not done carefully. Especially now that it gain access to Nasty Plot. It is definitely interesting to make one considering Levitate is not all that interesting of an Ability, though.

Also, what’s stopping evolutions from min-maxing - not to an extreme extent considering they can hold items unlike Megas - or have stuff like Huge Power as long as it is balanced accordingly? The Mawile evolution would need a very distinct niche - such as a lot more focus on Defense or perhaps going higher Special Attack - were it to coexist with Mega Mawile, that’s for sure.

Something tells me that there must be something that caused Game Freak to not be so fond of Mega Evolution, explaining why they keep switching the super mechanics each generation. Or that they actually prioritize on marketing above all else, but that’s another story.

Gigantamax is already worse in this regard when it comes to distribution, only being Gen 1 and Gen 8 with only Garbodor and Melmetal being the outliers. This is not helped by the fact that several Gigantamax forms are from somewhat to outright worse than regular Dynamax, especially with how little changes they have beyond a new G-Max move and a different appearance.

 

[R_N]

Evolutions generally, though not always, approach stat distribution with "what was there prior, but a little more". Occasionally they'll dump one stat to distribute across the others (torracat -> incineroar), or tweak them to emphasize a different stat (Porygon2 -> Porygon-Z which honestly could've just been a form change or a split evolution but I digress) but for the most part they're "reigned in" unless you're in a gimmick line where the entire shtick is they go from trash/mediocre to really good.
They're meant to be "step up" but in line with what you were. Going from a normal statline to a min-maxed statline just isn't a design ethos they generally want but one that Mega Evolution (as a once-per-match, only one pokemon at a time, can't use your held item and cannot increase your HP form change) kind of necessitates, especially for weaker Pokemon.

Which is all to say that if Sableye got a normal evolution, perhaps even one that sent it all the way to 500 BST, it would probably be distributed more evenly and likely wouldn't get magic guard. Lot of "useless" statpoints distributed elsewhere, most notably to HP (well HP isnt useless, but it's something to be mindful of) & speed.
A theoretical Mawile 2 is absolutely not getting Huge Power; the highest attacking stat used by someone normal with Huge/Pure Power is Medicham at 60. Normal Mawile has 85. Mega Mawile's 105 got away with it (& Mega Medicham's 100, for that matter) because it needs to be absurd by design.

Or to maybe turn this discussion around a little...Linoone -> Obstagoon is a 100 BST increase and you can just tell from its statline at a glance that had this been a mega they would have tanked its speed (& possibly special attack) way harder and dumped way more into both defenses and probably given it Fur Coat or an alike ability. Linoone was not a great Pokemon, ergo with a Mega they would have gone way harder on it


And none of this is to say that I wouldn't welcome them going "woops, here's some sableye & mawile evos" just I'd be looking at & using them and then glancing over at the megas they had and going "hm" because by design they can't be as good, you know?

 

[mertyville]

I am fine if there is a certain balance on what Pokemon get a mega. Like in-universe how convenient would it be that just the most useless Pokemon get a mega? So I kinda get some popular Pokemon that are already strong getting it.
But Hoenn really went to far turning almost all gen 3 Dragons into mega. This is why I am glad Flygon got non.

Like did nobody at Gamefreak consider that Salamence with more speed and an ability that boosts offense would make it broken? Arialate is utterly stupid. Tough Claws wouldn't be much better.
Did they think Mega Garchomp was too "overbalanced"? It just blows my mind.

They seem to have a fetish for Dragon and Psychic Types for some reason. (And Kanto).

Mega Evolution needs a base stat distribution nerf. Mega Gengar needs its mega ability retconned. Mega Audino needs a buff to its ability. Banette needs an evolution and then get a mega for that.

 

[DreamPrince]

Generation 5 has the largest amount of new Pokemon introduced, yet, Game Freak didn't give any of them a Mega Evolution but Audino, and that happens to be arguably the worst Mega Pokemon of them all.

I mean I guess I get that Unova Pokemon doesn't have a lot of bad Pokemon or perhaps it lacks certain hype generating Pokemon that could advertise Megas like Mewtwo, but I think that would be more reasonable over giving Slowbro a mega.
Don't get me wrong, I love Mega Slowbro's design. It's hilarious and it reminds me of something I saw somewhere but can't put my finger on it. (No, not chocolate cream horns.)
Slowbro is like a perfectly fine Pokemon and not something people think need a buff. Aside there being no ingame use for Slowbro since Hoenn has no wild Slowpoke if I recall correctly.

Couldn't they just give that Evil Zebra Pokemon a Mega? That looks like easy to improve the design and give some kind of reasonable buff.

I wonder if the reason they didn’t give Megas to Gen 5 aside from Audino was because Gen 5 was the most recent Gen before Megas came were introduced in XY.

And while it might not be the best Mega ever, I’ve had good success with it on Mono-Normal teams, thanks to its Fairy typing, it serves as an additional sponge against fighting types which puts relief off Staraptor. Yes it was still D-ranked and faces stiff competition from Loppuny and Pidgeot, it still had a Small niche.

But on the bright side, Unova got a huge amount of Regional variants in SwSh and will get more in Legends, so there is a win there. It’s actually a minor pet peeve of mine is that Unova got regional variants in SwSh while Sinnoh didn’t, despite Sinnoh being older and having remakes in the same Gen. Would have been nice to have regional variants of Sinnoh mons for BDSP since Sinnoh still has a low amount of Fire, Dragon, and Electric with Platinum’s expansion.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

They seem to have a fetish for Dragon and Psychic Types for some reason. (And Kanto).

Game Freak, give too much undue attention to Dragons, Psychics, and the Kanto region? Nah, that doesn't sound anything like them.

I wonder if the reason they didn’t give Megas to Gen 5 aside from Audino was because Gen 5 was the most recent Gen before Megas came were introduced in XY.

I think it was more to do with the nostalgia craze XY were trying to go all in on. That's why the majority of MEs were Gen I or fan-favourites like Lucario and Heracross. There's no point giving, say, Stoutland a Mega, because even the people who loved it will have just used it in the last set of games. Whereas a hypothetical series-long player who played Red and Blue when they first came out in 1996 and has played every subsequent game since might very well not have used a Pinsir since then. Or even used a Gardevoir since RSE.

There's no reason this had to outright prevent Game Freak from giving one Gen V Pokemon a Mega, but it's telling that the only mon to get one was one that needed a buff. Most of the Unova mons don't need buffing, but then neither did Tyranitar and Salamence and they got it anyway, so that can't be the reason - why not give us Mega Hydreigon, right? Not marketable enough, imo. All the Megas in XY either fall into the category of a) could benefit from a buff, or b) is an old-time fan-favourite.

 

[Bakugames]

Wouldn't be surprised if mega audino was made last minute because marketing head were like "we don't have enough megas that fit the girl market"

 

[TMan87]

Game Freak, give too much undue attention to Dragons, Psychics, and the Kanto region? Nah, that doesn't sound anything like them.

As a huge fan of Psychic Pokémon, I am proud that half of the legendaries (including Mythicals and stuff) are Psychic-typed.
As a huge fan of Psychic Pokémon, I am also disappointed that half of the usable Psychic-type Pokémon are legendaries & mythicals, thus rarely seen in playthroughs.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

We need more Psychic type pseudo legendaries. As much as I love the pseudos they have been making them Dragons for too long.

Metagross is the only one in the bunch who is a Psychic type. More Psychic type pseudos in the future would be absolutely appreciated, and there's plenty of room for variety in terms of aesthetic design for Psychic types, even more so than Dragon types.

 

[R_N]

Wouldn't be surprised if mega audino was made last minute because marketing head were like "we don't have enough megas that fit the girl market"

Audino....honestly just feels like someone on the design staff went "hey, how about audino" for kicks and they went "yeah ok, approved". Feel like you could apply that to a number of the non-gen-3 megas in ORAS.

It's definitely an eclectic mix, right? Slowbro, steelix, pidgeot, beedrill, lopunny, audino...

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Audino....honestly just feels like someone on the design staff went "hey, how about audino" for kicks and they went "yeah ok, approved". Feel like you could apply that to a number of the non-gen-3 megas in ORAS.

It's definitely an eclectic mix, right? Slowbro, steelix, pidgeot, beedrill, lopunny, audino...

I've seen a theory that the Gen I and II Megas in ORAS were thrown in as a nod to FRLG and I think it's plausible tbh. Pidgeot AND Beedrill? Showing the love to the crappy early-game mons I guess. Slowbro and Steelix were kind of weird choices in relation to the others.

Though it bugs me how many of ORAS's Megas feel like they're just there to suit the major characters in the story. Like Steven could have just made do with Mega Aggron but they were like "ah that's not cool enough, give Metagross a Mega!" Mega Altaria exists but it's too much of a girly design for a big manly man like Drake to use so we got Mega Salamence, one of the most horrendously godawful designs the series has ever thrown at us. Most of the Megas from ORAS don't feel to me like they should be there but Mega Sceptile and Swampert feel particularly superfluous, though I guess we had to have them because Blaziken got one too (our first Grass/Dragon was cool though, strange how that typing isn't seen more).