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SPOILERS! Mysteries and Conspiracies of Pokemon

R_N said:
My other favorite (one I'm sure has been mentioned here a few times) is the fact that pokemon eggs are not "really" eggs, something iirc mentioned once a million years ago in that untranslateduntilrecently pokedex book and then one (1) more time in a random ass NPC in XY
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It's been mentioned three times in the games according to Bulbapedia (well, two and alluded to in the third case):
According to a girl in Solaceon Town, where one of many Pokémon Day Cares are located, no one has ever seen a Pokémon lay an Egg, and thus, it is not confirmed that this is how they appear. According to Professor Elm, as quoted by a man in Hearthome City, and a Monsieur in Coumarine City, Eggs are not actually eggs and are more like "cradles".
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Here's are screenshots of the Monsieur in XY and the girl in Solaceon Town in DPPt:
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(I checked Bulbapedia's Quotes page for Professor Elm but he never mentions this, unless I missed something. Maybe the missing screenshots of the man in Hearthome mentions he heard it from Elm and that's what they're referring to. Maybe said man is in BDSP (as well as the above girl in Solaceon Town)?)

I mean, it's weird certainly, but on one end I KINDA get it. There are many mammal-based Pokemon, why are they laying eggs? Not to mention, Pokemon don't only breed within their species but rather there's this cluster of "Egg Groups" which lets all sorts of Pokemon "breed" with one another no matter how different in species they are. Oh, and that's also not to mention Pokemon based on objects & elementals & who are genderless are also able to produce "Egg" even if it requires a Ditto. Infact, Ditto itself is odd as, it's not only able to "breed" with a genderless creature and produce an "Egg" but also Ditto are just supposed to exactly copy what they see... yet no matter the gender an "Egg" is produced (and for Pokemon which are male only (and don't have a female counterpart) that's the ONLY way to get an Egg of their species). So, I can understand GF thinking "you know our "Eggs" are REALLY weird, not to mention the concept of breeding Pokemon kind of leaning on mature content, how about we step away from that and say not only have no one seen a Pokemon lay an Egg but they're also not Eggs in the typical way we think of them; they're just called "Eggs" because that's the closest comparison people could make".

"Then what are they then"
"They're, um, like cradles..."

... And since I brought it up in a recent thread, I too knew of this little oddity fact and so decided to play with it by including at least a part of it in my PokeMatter theory. Taking what the NPCs are saying at face value, Pokemon indeed don't lay eggs, infact the way Pokemon propagate is completely alien to humans (and real world animals). Pokemon have found a way to form an energy union with an accepted partner which then a PokeMatter shell is constructed around (note Pokemon don't have to like each other to do this, they just need to agree that the other Pokemon's genetics would make a good pair with theirs; this is also likely only to happen with trained Pokemon as Wild Pokemon would likely stick with their group. BTW, as sick as it sounds, this also explains away how you can "breed" family members together: you're technically not as it's just energy being contributed). This union sort of happens in both its own plane of existence as well as absence of time; while the Pokemon forming the union it'll feel like it takes however long they perceive to take, from an outside view one moment two Pokemon are standing together, next there's a Pokemon Egg. Infact it's so instantaneous the outside viewer's mind simply assumes the Egg has always been there and it just didn't notice it right away. So, the Egg itself is just a bundle of two compatible Pokemon's energy within a PokeMatter shell (the theory I link to more goes into how Ditto does it, since Ditto is only contributing a copy of the same energy it's technically not compatible but Ditto is also able to artificially construct a PokeMatter shell, thus when you breed a Pokemon with Ditto you're sorta cloning it). From there is just sort of works like a normal Egg, the two energies and the traits encoded in them begin to merge and solidify into the mother's/non-Ditto species (or whatever other exception I can't easily typo out like with the gender counterparts), possibly using the PokeMatter shell in someway to help in that regard as well. As first there doesn't feel to be anything in the Egg cause technically there isn't, it's just energy in a shell, but as it merges it gains a physical presence and thus weight and movement until finally ready to hatch.

Ironmage said:
I also feel that pokemon being converted to energy/data also works to explain why the first and most prominent artificially created pokemon was done through programming and not e.g. genetic engineering. If we assume the technology exists, it also explains a lot of the weird stuff with items over the series (why they always appear as pokeballs in the overworld, how the player can carry so much, why trade with item evolutions are a thing) and how the teleporters we've had since gen 1 work. I guess if we extend the shrinking thing outwards, it could explain Dynamax and why most large mons are light for their size? Still seems a bit lacking in comparison
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Early installment weirdness. Infact Pokemon has a whole page dedicated to it on TV Tropes.

When they first made the games they just wanted to give a reason why Pokemon are able to fit into smaller Poke Balls. So, while not said in-game, their answer was in a booklet explaining that a scientist discovered a certain combination of drugs causes Pokemon to shrink and go unconscious and thus be storable in a container like a ball. For the time when Pokemon was just a game that was enough... then it got super popular. Yeah, this and some older information they wrote they realized wasn't going to cut it if they want to make more games in the future as well as have shows and movies. So for Poke Balls they resorted to magical technology. Now, they're could still be a sense of this origin for Poke Balls but it's now very much downplayed and the specifics likely have changed especially with the existance of Apricorn Balls (heck the origin of Poke Balls is a bit messy itself unless you're liberal what has been said. Drayden says Poke Balls didn't exist when he was a kid, which could only be true if he maybe means the modern day version of the Poke Ball. Legends: Arceus not only implies Poke Balls existed couple hundred years ago, but since some of the steampunk balls are based in Apricorn Poke Balls that would imply Apricorn Poke Balls have existed for even longer).

Obviously the Special/Adventure Manga knew about this thus why is shows Pokemon shrunk in their Poke Balls, which is probably why Pokemon fans in Japan "know" this as many probably read the manga, possibly first before the anime.

Nokocchi said:
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Didn't know about this! Some interesting stuff:

Belts Before Badges: Now that makes a lot of sense. Without bias, going to "Gyms" to collect "Badges" would certainly sound strange... but change it to "Dojos" to collect "Belts" now puts the pieces together. The "whipping your Pokemon" with them felt like an odd idea, like why? Did you have to make your Pokemon obedient to you first by whipping them to submission? Did they somehow give your Pokemon a boost of some kind? Eitherway definitely unneeded... though odd that also meant they changed belts to badges. "Well, if we can't cruelly beat a living creature with it, no point keeping it a belt". I wonder if they may ever return to the collectible being belt, obviously not giving you the whipping option, but with GF always trying to do something new could see the collectible award being an easy thing to change; I mean, they did it in Alola with the awards being the Z-Crystals.

World Shaped By A Childhood: Lot's of neat trivia about Tajiri's influence on Kanto & Johto here!
  • The idea for Fossil Pokemon came from him being able to collect Fossils when he was a kid (at the cost of the wilderness he caught bugs in got urbanized as he grew older; but it also introduced an arcade which developed his love of video games).

  • Cinnabar Island was based on a school trip to Izu Islands.

  • The size of Kanto is based on Tajiri's experience of how him and his friends used to ride as far as they could on their bikes.

  • He later expanded upon that idea in Gen II with how far he was able to go via train, hence the Magnet Train.

  • Remember that beta of Johto's map and how different it was to the Johto we got (and Kanto was pretty much shrunk to one giant city location)? That's because it was meant to be based on ALL of Japan due to riding on the trains allowed him to go all over Japan.

Outdated Tech: As Nokocchi said, Porygon is a joke on people who said 1996 was too late to be making a new game on the Game Boy (especially one time Tajiri was at a barbershop) and was told he should be making games that used polygons. But since you can't do 3d graphics on the GB, he made Porygon as a "take that". Not sure why he thought everyone would get the "joke" that Porygon was a "take that", like that's an inside joke only those who kept telling Tajiri to make a game with 3d graphics would get. Most people just thought it was at most an interesting Pokemon concept.

The Planning Days: A bit of a timeline:
* Tajiri pitched Pokemon to Creatures Inc (then Ape Inc) in 1990 and finish it in 6 months.
* Creatures was actually making a similar game called Toto (which uses the GB as an insect cage to catch creatures), but out of respect for Tajiri, cancelled it. They were worried that Tajiri would get offended with Toto feeling they copied his idea.
* Pokemon grew bigger and they couldn't finish it in 6 months. Miyamoto liked the idea of the game and how it could only work on the GB (because of the Link Cable), but didn't want it to be an RPG (of course he didn't...). Miyamoto wasn't sure if they made an RPG they would know "when to finish" and only wanted to focus on the essence of the game. Thankfully it was Tajiri's decision in the end who wanted it to be an RPG. Though at the time of the interview Miyamoto said he still wasn't sure it was the right call.

So, was making Pokemon an RPG the right call? YES. A major appeal of Pokemon is that sense of progression of leveling, evolving, and teaching new moves. Not to mention just monster fighting would feel pointless without a story to give a sense of purpose of doing so. It also gives a chance to make interesting human characters and give them some backstory instead of just being a boss to fight. I feel those are the main points why Pokemon needed to be an RPG at first and no other genre would have really allowed that engagement.

Fuji Forest: OH JEEZ, they were going to include a location based on the Suicide Forest?! Yeah, I could see why it got cut... though I got to also question their thought that would be where Misdreavus and other Ghost-type Pokemon would be. According to Wikipedia, the reason it's believed to be haunted is because of the suicides. Like if there was any religious or mythical connection to it being haunted I would think it would have been mentioned (like possibly the practice of ubasute, leaving elders to die, was done there and its haunted by their ghosts, but I feel that's overshadowed by the modern day mass suicides). So including the Ghost-types there would have been SUPER inappropriate.
 
So I've been playing FRLG quite a bit lately, and one thing that strikes me as particularly interesting is the way Pokémon are grouped in the habitat pages of the Pokedex.

For those who don't know, FRLG's Pokedex has a special function called the "Habitat" pages where you can see mons grouped together based on their preferred kind of habitat, whether it be "Grassland", "Rough Terrain", "Water's Edge", etc. But they are all grouped into multiple pages so certain mons appear together. Three-stage evolutionary families all get their own pages and don't share their pages with anyone else, but many two-stage families and single-stage Pokemon are grouped together into the same page. For example, the Vulpix and Ponyta lines are grouped together on one page, the Sandshrew and Rhyhorn lines are grouped together, the Grimer and Koffing lines, and so on. One page even has Aipom, Stantler, and Kecleon all grouped together.

It does strike me as to whether there was any sort of weird thinking process as to how certain mons were grouped together. A case like, say Grimer and Koffing being grouped together on the same page makes sense since the lines are deliberate counterparts both found in the same places and based on pollution, but cases like Sandslash and Rhydon being grouped together on the same page, or Vulpix and Ponyta being grouped together, strikes as interesting. These lines don't share much in common other than type, and Sandshrew and Vulpix are version exclusives with other mons (namely Ekans and Growlithe) and in these cases Sandshrew is an early game Pokemon that evolves into a mid-game Pokemon, while Rhyhorn is a mid-game Pokemon that evolves into a late-game Pokemon. Same with Vulpix, who is an early-mid game Pokemon who evolves into a mid-late game Pokemon while Ponyta is a late-game Pokemon who evolves late. Or even a case where a Kanto mon shares a page with another generation's mon: Doduo shares a page with Taillow, and Electabuzz shares a page with Electrike and Manectric. I find a lot of groupings in the FRLG's Habitat pages to be odd and wonder if they had any sort of rationale for grouping mons together the way they did.
 
ScraftyIsTheBest said:
So I've been playing FRLG quite a bit lately, and one thing that strikes me as particularly interesting is the way Pokémon are grouped in the habitat pages of the Pokedex.

For those who don't know, FRLG's Pokedex has a special function called the "Habitat" pages where you can see mons grouped together based on their preferred kind of habitat, whether it be "Grassland", "Rough Terrain", "Water's Edge", etc. But they are all grouped into multiple pages so certain mons appear together. Three-stage evolutionary families all get their own pages and don't share their pages with anyone else, but many two-stage families and single-stage Pokemon are grouped together into the same page. For example, the Vulpix and Ponyta lines are grouped together on one page, the Sandshrew and Rhyhorn lines are grouped together, the Grimer and Koffing lines, and so on. One page even has Aipom, Stantler, and Kecleon all grouped together.

It does strike me as to whether there was any sort of weird thinking process as to how certain mons were grouped together. A case like, say Grimer and Koffing being grouped together on the same page makes sense since the lines are deliberate counterparts both found in the same places and based on pollution, but cases like Sandslash and Rhydon being grouped together on the same page, or Vulpix and Ponyta being grouped together, strikes as interesting. These lines don't share much in common other than type, and Sandshrew and Vulpix are version exclusives with other mons (namely Ekans and Growlithe) and in these cases Sandshrew is an early game Pokemon that evolves into a mid-game Pokemon, while Rhyhorn is a mid-game Pokemon that evolves into a late-game Pokemon. Same with Vulpix, who is an early-mid game Pokemon who evolves into a mid-late game Pokemon while Ponyta is a late-game Pokemon who evolves late. Or even a case where a Kanto mon shares a page with another generation's mon: Doduo shares a page with Taillow, and Electabuzz shares a page with Electrike and Manectric. I find a lot of groupings in the FRLG's Habitat pages to be odd and wonder if they had any sort of rationale for grouping mons together the way they did.
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Always liked this feature and found it curious for the same reason!

In a lot of places, as you said, they seem to have just gone for similar "archetypes" of Pokemon rather than anything else. Like Paras and Shroomish because they're both mushroom species - eh, makes sense I guess. Or Voltorb and Porygon because they're both manmade*, inorganic Pokemon despite them otherwise having very little to do with each other. Qwilfish, Corsola, Mantine, and Luvdisc all in one section feels efficient too.

Looking at the listings on Bulbapedia a lot of them feel very neat (like Sentret/Furret and Rattata/Raticate on one page) but the more it goes on the more it feels like many of the groupings are just leftovers that don't fit elsewhere; Electabuzz is a good example because it has much more in common with, say, Magnemite or Voltorb (who themselves should have been grouped) but instead it's shoved off to be placed with Manectric.

Interesting that it's Ponyta and Vulpix grouped rather than Vulpix and Growlithe since they're counterparts. Sableye and Mawile are together, as are Tauros and Miltank, Volbeat and Illumise, Solrock and Lunatone, and Minun and Plusle. SM/USUM does a similar sort of thing where evolutionary lines are displayed together as you scroll through the dex (like if you scroll to Pikipek on the bottom screen it shows Trumbeak and Toucannon grouped beside it on the top screen) and counterpart species like Oranguru & Passimian or Tauros & Miltank are similarly grouped.

Some other oddities that jump out at me you didn't mention:

Unusual groupings

Castform and Chimecho
These two have pretty much zero to do with each other so make a particularly strange pairing. Castform being grassland at all is odd because it's explicitly a manmade mon and those are typically in the "urban" category.

Drowzee/Hypno and Gulpin/Swalot
The former are more urban (they are found in grassland routes like Kanto Route 7, but usually close by to cities and it's in their lore that they're urban, though FRLG literally puts them in a forest as well)

Exeggcute/Exeggutor and Sudowoodo
Where on earth is there overlap here? Exeggcute has more in common with Chansey location-wise. Sudowoodo feels unique enough that it should be on its own - if Relicanth, Snorlax, and Lapras all warrant their own pages...

Duskull/Dusclops and Shuppet/Banette
An aversion because these lot buck the archetype trend. You'd expect these all to be on the same page going by the matching up of typing and theme we've seen so far. But instead Duskull is forest while Shuppet is urban - why? Outside of Pal Park, when is Duskull ever encountered in a forest in the MSG?

Shuckle, Delibird, and Teddiursa/Ursaring
These three families being grouped feels incredibly odd. The former two feel like they probably deserve their own page.

Pokemon in erroneous categories

The Charmander line being in mountain. Is it? Always struck me as a grassland mon.

By the inclusion of Pokemon like Metagross and Flygon we can assume that rough terrain is desert-like areas, though you wouldn't tell that from the image which just looks like grassland. Magnemite, Houndour, and Bagon are all here: the first is definitely urban, the second feels more suited to grassland, and the third cave or mountain.

Smoochum/Jynx, Smeargle, and Chansey are all urban Pokemon. Since when, exactly?

The "rare" section is deliberately nebulous because they clearly wanted to reserve it for Unown & legendaries (even though several of those are elsewhere - would be extremely dull for all legendaries to be here tbf) but this definitely feels like it should have been opened up to one-time-only Pokemon like Castform (well, maybe - urban probably suits) or Eevee (urban doesn't really feel right on it imo, and certainly not for the evolutions).
 
The habitats probably did have some internal logic, one they've definitely thought about in various ways for ages; that seemingly-hilariously-important pokedex book also grouped pokemon into various habitats (though several differ).
How much those habitats matter to us is probably going to differe until we get to pick their heads


Castform & Chimecho are probably together because they're both based on things you'd see hanging under [especially japanese] awnings: a teruteru bozu and a wind chime
Which does make it odd that it's grasslands rather than urban as you say so hey that's what I mean when I say picking their heads eh?

Jynx honestly probably a ganguro reference (lotta of those folks would be in urban cities) and Chanseyprobably more references to the anime (Chansey being in all the pokemon centers, and all those)
 
Ironmage said:
It might be interesting to cross-reference that list with the friend areas from the first PMD games, since they're both displaying a pokemon's preferred environment. Off the top of my head, that list also supports the Charmander line as being native to mountains (it shares the Mt. Cleft area with the larvitar and aron lines)
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Charmander in Snap shows up in the Volcano area, which is basically mountain.
 
In a different topic, people often mock Pokémon that are things and are considered unpopular. But if you think about it, there is a far more unpopular Pokémon type: fish.

Really! Seaking was found to be the least popular Pokémon to use in playthroughs in another topic, Lumineon being forgettable is a meme, Luvdisc is only known for being weak, Alomomola is only remembered for not being a Luvdisc evo, no one talks about Barraskweda...

The only popular fishes are Magikarp and Feebas, but that is mainly due to their evolutions (which aren't fishes). The others, yeah. Being fair I'm neutral on fish, so don't think I'm complaining out of bias.

Not sure what to conclude from this, but regardless, it's a thing.
 
ZettaiRyouiki said:
In a different topic, people often mock Pokémon that are things and are considered unpopular. But if you think about it, there is a far more unpopular Pokémon type: fish.

Really! Seaking was found to be the least popular Pokémon to use in playthroughs in another topic, Lumineon being forgettable is a meme, Luvdisc is only known for being weak, Alomomola is only remembered for not being a Luvdisc evo, no one talks about Barraskweda...

The only popular fishes are Magikarp and Feebas, but that is mainly due to their evolutions (which aren't fishes). The others, yeah. Being fair I'm neutral on fish, so don't think I'm complaining out of bias.

Not sure what to conclude from this, but regardless, it's a thing.
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I feel like part of why fish Pokemon fly under the radar is because with object Pokemon, each one is a unique thing. Whenever one shows up, those people who hate object Pokemon for some reason can point and say "look, it's the ice cream" "look, it's the pokeball" "look, it's the keys" etc, there's always a "the" in there somewhere.

But fish? Another fish Pokemon isn't noteworthy. There's nothing for the "Pokemon is running out of ideas" crowd to latch onto (which is ironic, but then that crowd has never been known for having intelligent opinions). They all just blend into a single description of "fish".

I also have nothing against fish Pokemon, for the record.
 
Nah, the issue with Fish pokemon is that they are mostly available by surfing. When, by definition, you have a water-type. They're also available with Rods, but Old Rod is Magikarp-only and Good Rod is usually right before or right after you use Surf. Combined with how good Water-types are and most players will want to catch their Water-type well before they get an opportunity to catch a Fish pokemon.
 
As part of a crackpot theory on the availability of Magnemite in Legends, I happened to be looking through the amount of egg cycles required to hatch any given pokemon. This is coded for all mons, including those that can't normally breed. Here's some interesting stuff from that data:

  • Most mons take 20 cycles. Early-game commons breed easier, with them usually taking only 15. The fastest mon to hatch is Magikarp, being the only line that takes 5 cycles.
  • The longest time a regular mon takes is 40, which is normally reserved for rare mons like Chansey and pseudo-legendaries. However, it also includes a notable amount of misc water types, such as Wailmer, Basculin, and Relicanth.
  • The first set of minor legendaires in a generation usually take 80 cycles, while other legendaries, Ultra Beasts, and mythicals usually take 120.
  • Heatran hatches extremely quickly, with only taking 10 cycles. Combined with having an even gender ratio, it would apparently be very common if it could breed normally.
  • Manaphy hatches much faster (10 cycles) than Phione (40 cycles).
  • Diancie takes the same 25 cycles as Carbink.
  • Tapus hatch fast, with 15 cycles.
  • Fossils are slower to breed than most mons, with Aerodactyl and the Galar fossils taking 35 and all other fossil mons taking 30.
  • Regieleki and Regidrago take longer (120 cycles) than the first 3 regis (80 cycles). This might be a coincidence, since 80 has not been used since gen 5 as a result of the only qualifying set of legendaries (the tapus) using a different value. Or it could indicate that the two newer Regis were more difficult to create.
 
DrPumpkinz said:
39 hours is long enough to warrant a double post.

:ss/cufant::ss/copperajah:

Given one of copper's most defining features is its exceptional electrical conductivity (second only to silver) it's strange that Cufant and Copperajah get literally no Electric moves. Not even Thunder Fang. The mud/clay/rubber/whatever elephant is more electrically adept than the copper elephant.
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I just remembered that Copperajah is also known for getting destroyed by Raichu. I don't know if having a hyperconductive body would heighten or reduce the lethality of electric attacks, however. I guess it would depend on how deep the copper goes. If it's just its skin that's copper, then the electricity would probably be carried safely around its innards and into the ground, but if its whole body is copper, then the electricity could easily draw a path through Copperajah's heart or other organs.
 
Tonight one thing that particularly interests me in general is experience groups. I know some people here have had complaints about them in the past, but that's beside the point right now. What intrigues me about them is the intention behind them, especially in the context of Gen 1, which of course in spite of its remarkably flawed game design, clearly drew from RPG game design in several ways.

Among these is the experience groups. In Gen 1, there were four experience groups: Fast, Medium Fast, Medium Slow, and Slow. Going down the list of Gen 1 mons that exist, this is basically all of the original 151 who are in each EXP Group:

Fast: Clefable, Wigglytuff, Chansey
Medium Fast: Butterfree, Beedrill, just about every two-stage evolutionary line, and most single-stage Pokemon
Medium Slow: Most three-stage evolutionary lines (except Butterfree, Beedrill, and Dragonite), Mew
Slow: Arcanine, Tentacruel, Cloyster, Exeggutor, Rhydon, Starmie, Pinsir, Tauros, Gyarados, Lapras, Aerodactyl, Snorlax, Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Dragonite, Mewtwo

It seems there is a trend, where most mons who are the typical two-stage family and evolve once are in the Medium Fast EXP Group, and the majority of three-stage mons, especially the starters, are in the Medium Slow EXP Group, both of which are the medium EXP groups. Interestingly, the big thing that stands out is that based on the functions that are calculated with these two groups, the Medium Fast group levels up more slowly earlier on than in the Medium Slow EXP group, but the two groups do even out and as you head into the 40s and onwards, the Medium Fast group levels up a bit more quickly from that point. Meaning that a typical three-stage Pokemon will level up at a faster rate than a typical two-stage Pokemon in RBY for a large portion of the game, while a two-stage mon will level up at a notably slower rate.

What strikes as especially fascinating, however, is the Fast and Slow groups. The Fast group belongs only to Wigglytuff, Clefable, and Chansey. I am not sure what is supposed to be the design intention behind these three in particular leveling up so quickly, and needing so few experience per level, other than that they are pink and cute and two of them are early game stone evolutions. The Slow group seems to be intended for Pokemon who are strong Pokemon or are conceived as "high effort, high reward Pokemon". You have cases like legendary Pokemon, who are immediately powerhouses off the bat, as well as Lapras, Snorlax, Tauros, and Pinsir, who are remarkably good single-stage Pokemon who are powerful off the bat as well. On the other hand, you have Gyarados and its pre-evolution Magikarp, who is obviously pathetic until it finally evolves in which Gyarados becomes insanely powerful, thus the Slow EXP group is intended to further reinforce the high amount of effort you need to invest for the high reward you get Gyarados. The other case is Dragonite, who originated the pseudo-legendary archetype, and given its high evolution levels, and Dragonite being so statistically powerful, it is clear the intention is that it's a high effort Pokemon who pays off incredibly in the end, but needs significant investment to reach its potential.

But then you have cases like Arcanine, Tentacruel, Cloyster, and Starmie, who are odd standouts in the Slow group. None of them strike as particularly "special" or "powerful" or needing the high effort for high return, and all four of them are mostly random two-stage mons. Exeggutor and Rhydon also stand out, though one could argue in Rhydon's case that it's a late game strong mon in RBY who needs high effort to yield high reward.

I do find these EXP groups fascinating in terms of what the intended game design was behind them.

As another example, I decided to look down Gen 5's EXP groupings, as it's the closest expy to Gen 1 in terms of Pokemon rosters.

Fast: Musharna, Audino, Cinccino, Alomomola
Medium Fast: Most two-stage lines, most single stage Pokemon
Medium Slow: Most three-stage lines, Darmanitan, Zoroark, Mienshao
Slow: All legendaries and mythicals, Vanilluxe, Eelektross, Haxorus, Braviary, Mandibuzz, Volcarona, Hydreigon

I highlight Gen 5 as the biggest example, but the trends have persisted across generations. With some exceptions, most three-stage families are in the Medium Slow group, and most are in Medium Fast, but in some cases, some two-stage families, such as Darmanitan and Mienshao in Gen 5, are in the Medium Slow group. Meanwhile, in Gen 6, both Florges and Aegislash are in the Medium Fast group despite being three-stage families.

Then you have the Fast and Slow groups. I note a trend that is further highlighted in Gen 5, but the Fast group seems to consist of the cute mons for some reason, with Cinccino, Clefable, Azumarill, Wigglytuff, and Togekiss all being in such group, as well as "cleric" oriented mons such as Chansey, Audino, Alomomola, and Comfey.

The Slow Group consists of every pseudo-legendary and legendary for obvious reasons, but in a case like Gen 5, you have a few standouts in the Slow group, such as Vanilluxe, who is an odd case. Eelektross, Haxorus, Braviary, and Mandibuzz could be argued to be like Rhydon in that they are late-game and among the strongest in the Gen 5 roster's power curve, though the fact that they are in the Slow group still stands out.

Just a bit of rambling. I know many may consider EXP Groups to be an annoyance, but I do wonder what's the design process behind EXP Groups: more specifically, the intention behind them and which mons go into which groups from a game design standpoint.
 
Siggu said:
Either that of the game wasn't originally set in the past and this is a leftover.

The "opening sequence" scenario is more likely.
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Or could have been for a "Mystery Dungeon"-like ending once the player completed the story: They're sent back to the future, waking up in their bed as if it was a dream, check their phone to see that it's still the Arc Phone but inactive, mill about our room for a bit thinking about the people and Pokemon they met, but then on their TV screen an image of Jubilife Village appears and the last thing we see if the player reaching out to touch it. We're taken back to the start screen, continue game, and the player wakes up in their room in Jubilife Village to play post game in. The implication is that the player now isn't stuck in the past, but they chose to stay in the past for the time being (I don't think the player would be allowed to permanently stay in the past, but there's no harm for a little while longer).
 
ScraftyIsTheBest said:
Fast: Clefable, Wigglytuff, Chansey
Medium Fast: Butterfree, Beedrill, just about every two-stage evolutionary line, and most single-stage Pokemon
Medium Slow: Most three-stage evolutionary lines (except Butterfree, Beedrill, and Dragonite), Mew
Slow: Arcanine, Tentacruel, Cloyster, Exeggutor, Rhydon, Starmie, Pinsir, Tauros, Gyarados, Lapras, Aerodactyl, Snorlax, Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Dragonite, Mewtwo


Fast: Musharna, Audino, Cinccino, Alomomola
Medium Fast: Most two-stage lines, most single stage Pokemon
Medium Slow: Most three-stage lines, Darmanitan, Zoroark, Mienshao
Slow: All legendaries and mythicals, Vanilluxe, Eelektross, Haxorus, Braviary, Mandibuzz, Volcarona, Hydreigon
Click to expand...

So this obviously doesn't explain away ALL of the oddities, but I have some ideas.
  • Clefable and Wigglytuff, as well as a couple Gen 5 counterparts in Musharna and Cinccino, are designed as early game Crutch Pokemon to a degree. They have unremarkable typings and evolve via Stone rather than level, while having (nearly) barren level up Movepools once they are evolved. So I think the idea was once you evolved them and thus limited their gains in moves, the trade-off was they would level up very quickly with the EXP you gave them until they fell off. This is a similar reason why Butterfree and Beedrill have Medium-Fast compared to other 3-stages, since they are Crutch Bugs but their final form is supposed to be what you go straight for rather than picking a time to evolve.
    • Compared to the other Stone Evolution Mons, which come from later game Pokemon already and are generally designed to be more Endgame viable once they're evolved. Unlike the Pink Blobs and such, these mons have more dynamic typings in either form that means they can perform better both before and after, so you might stick with Growlithe a bit longer for moves and thus not need to level up for Arcanine's stats as soon, reducing the need to "maximize" the EXP it's given as much.
    • No clue about Tentacruel, he's the main anomaly there to me.
  • Chansey, Audino, and to a lesser extent Alomomola, are all Pokemon with very heavily defensive/supportive kits and statlines (Gen 1 Special stat notwithstanding). They're very hard to level up typically as a result, given they either cherry tap the opponent with passive/weak damage, or have to tag-in/tag-out with an offensive teammate and thus split the EXP. The Fast grouping is probably to compensate so their level goes up despite getting less EXP-per-efforted-gain than most Pokemon.
  • Gen 5 Darmanitan in Medium-Slow is probably because of availability relatively early compared to their power. Besides Darumaka being an encounter in the Desert Resort that's already very strong for in-game, depending on their planning there is also the Darmanitan encounters in the Resort (namely N's in B2W2 if you link the games). This would give access to an extremely powerful and fast leveling Pokemon just after the 3rd Gym, so the EXP curve might have been to give it a bit of a slower start to keep pace (for Darumaka) and to stop it from sprinting away from the rest of your levels in case of either Brute Force or Disobedience (for N's Darmanitan, which also has the other-trainer EXP boost).
 
pika pal said:
No clue about Tentacruel, he's the main anomaly there to me.
Click to expand...

Tentacruel had 120 Special in Gen I, giving it a BST equivalent to 555. This is probably why it's Slow, BST is often a key factor here.

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Something that bugs me a little about giving weaker Pokémon Medium Fast curves is that Medium Fast levels more slowly than Medium Slow at early levels. In these cases, the EXP curve only starts to make sense late in the game, instead of early on when they're most useful. Because of this, early Bugs and such actually level slower than the starters, mitigating the underlying concept of rapidly growing in strength but falling off later on.
 
Replaying ORAS recently got me wondering about Southern Island. The map descriptor of the area states

This small island is surrounded by a mysterious veil that makes approach impossible for mere humans.

What kind of veil do we suppose this is? How are people prevented from approaching exactly? Yes, I know, this one's meant to be vague and mysterious, I'm just curious...
 
Random bit of speculation: the primary purpose of Basculin-White is to future-proof the evolution method. Basculegion requires HP lost to recoil moves, which doesn't produce a problem within Legends. However, Basculin-Blue can have Rock Head as an ability, which would prevent evolution without a lot of effort put into a specific setup. That issue can be sidestepped by making it so Basculin-Blue can't evolve at all, but that breaks the symmetry between the two forms. So instead they made a third form of Basculin that is the only one that evolves (another solution would have been to give a different evolution method to Basculin-Blue).

Basculegion having mechanically different forms might also indicate that it was intended to evolve from Basculin-Red and Basculin-Blue before this issue was pointed out.
 
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