I would, I would just keep it attached to my body.
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Not sure if anyone told you the exact details. JN089 & JN090 start with a mystery where Dawn's Piplup is Pokenapped... by someone that looks like her that then crosses through a portal (later referred to as a "gate")! Dawn calls Ash for help and he, Goh, and Chloe go to help Dawn find Piplup. As they're figuring out what happened the Team Rocket Trio attacks, but just before they're thwarted another Team Rocket Trio appears and steal Pikachu, Lucario & Inteleon and go into a gate. As they retreat Ash & co. try to follow but a Dark Pulse from the second Meowth separates them, Dawn & Goh going through the Gate while Ash & Chloe are left behind. Waking up in "Twinleaf Town", Dawn & Goh check around noticing things don't look quite right: there's an aurora in the sky, there's no flowers, and most importantly there's no Pokemon. Heading into Dawn's house they see she's not a Coordinator but rather a trainer who participated in the Sinnoh League and got second place! That's when they encounter the second Dawn who has Piplup, Piplup returning to the normal Dawn, and second Dawn explains to them what's happening. I'll leave it at that, though they are a pair of interesting episodes well worth the watch.
I still feel Palkia altered itself too much in the wrong direction. Like, it's not that it morphed it's body parts to be in the shape of Arceus, but it morphed its lower body to look like a horse... even though Arceus' legs don't look like that. There's also the shoulders, they could have just lowered them so it didn't look like it just lopped off its arms. For the master of space, it's sure bad at reorganizing its own body, Necrozma does a better job!
Team Flare grunts know that Lysandre is trying to cull the planet via making Team Flare immortal and killing all Pokemon and people not part of Team Flare. Infact all of the grunts had to pay a million dollars to save themselves (and I guess in order to even be given this option someone in Team Flare has to "invite" you, probably needing permission from admins first (no point in inviting someone if they aren't able to pay or at least work off the entrance fee)). It's why they act smug, they think they're better than everyone else cause they're not going to die and become immortal. Not sure what the exact deal is, but Lysandre had told his grunts they're all going to inherit the entire planet and he seems genuine on that (going to guess that he's going to give each grunt large pieces of land to control?). I think it's meant to show that Lysandre's vision of "keeping the world beautiful" is flawed because he blames the problems of society on people being selfish & greedy... yet the people that he's letting join Team Flare are exactly that because those are the only kind of people who would go along with such a messed up plan. Unfortunately it's no done in a great way and just makes Lysandre look like an idiot.
As for Aether Foundation, in vanilla SM EVERYONE is unaware of Lusamine's goals as her goals are completely selfish. Not sure what Faba thought Lusamine was doing, either he was misled or he was purposely following Lusamine's madness in hoping of taking over (note all the "evil" Aether Grunts were more working under Faba's orders, I don't think Lusamine was giving any grunt direct orders). Guzma seemingly was misled into thinking he and Lusamine were going to Ultra Space to capture the Nihilego, he didn't seem to know Lusamine wanted to join with the Nihilego (and was using him as a brawn pawn). Meanwhile in USUM, while I don't think the scenario has changed too much with the Aether Foundation members such as Faba (who later begins working with RR Giovanni and who knows if he may have been working with him longer), Guzma seems aware of Lusamine's plan of wanting to save Necrozma (not that it matters to him, the only thing Guzma cares about is Lusamine since she's the only one who treated him like he was someone).
I also wouldn't completely write-off Team Skull. The grunts nor Plumeria knew Guzma was planning on going with Lusamine and seemingly abandoning them. Guzma seemed to think they would be returning to the normal Pokemon world, but that's besides the point. How much Team Skull knew is up to debate, while Plumeria at the very least knew that Guzma's plan was to help Lusamine achieve her goal whatever that was, the grunts likely just did what they were told out of loyalty and likely under threat of Guzma beating them up.
Yeah, but it hits differently. In SM, Lusamine is completely unredeemable, I think Gladion has completely given up on her, it's Lillie who has to look deep down in herself to not only call out her mother but also want to try and pull her mother back; it's a very personal thing only Lillie could have decided. In USUM, Lusamine is changed to a well-intentioned extremist, and while her actions are still mostly unforgiveable, due to the "well-intentioned" part others are more likely to help try to redeem her if they see there's a honest effort to do so. Now, it's still up to Lillie to initiates that effort, but she's not the only one who wants it now (Gladion's opinion of his mother changed from never forgiving her in SM to begging to let him help her in USUM).
WHA? No, I totally trust someone who talks like this:
I took the "dark secret" just being they performed genetic experiments in order to make the Type: Fulls and, when they failed, the cover-up which changed their names to Type: Null. It's more of a dark shame, and if found out their reputation as a Pokemon humanitarian group would be called into question and possibly investigation.
Meanwhile the "evil" grunts I took to be a separate thing; that they're members loyal to Faba who plans on taking over (with them getting promotions and higher salary among other perks for their part in the overthrow). Granted Faba would want to keep the Type: Null failure a secret, but it's not because of that Faba and his "evil" grunts are doing what they're doing (which is likely letting the insane Lusamine do whatever she's planning until she either does herself in or they can strike and take her out).
Male roaches are smaller than females though, so it'd be more like the rest of the body shrinks but the wings remain the same size.
I think Hatterene is more concerned with those who are seeking it or will come upon it, I don't think it would care if there was someone sick or injured as they pose no threat/hostility. It'll only have issue with Blissey if somehow the healed person decides to continue on being a threat towards it... but that's not likely as Blissey's power would make said person full of happiness and peace thus go away with Blissey back from where they came. If anything a Hatterene may have a/some Blissey working for it for this purpose.
- Hatterene: "I'm sensing a disturbance in the forest. Some thrill-seeking fool is coming close."
- *Hatterene prepares its claws*
- Hatterene: ... Wait. A sudden change in their demeaner? Pain. Sadness. Fear. The fool seemed to have injured themselves and now stuck in my forest. Blissey, do you hear my voice?
- Blissey: GAAAH! Arceus? Is that you?! It's me, Blissey.
- Hatterene: No, Blissey, it's Hatterene. We've been over this.
- Blissey: What can I do for you your grouchy-ness?
- Hatterene: If I didn't know you I'd assume you were insulting me. Anyway, a fool has injured themselves in the northeast part of the forest. Heal them and send them away.
- Blissey: OH NOES! A SOUL IN NEED!! HERE I COME TO SAVE THE DAY!!!
- *Hatterene gives out exhausted & exasperated sigh*
Interesting thought (and a very sweet story), though we've seen some examples where the opposite happens: that even in the Wild a Shiny is treated special.
- Ash's Noctowl was considered the smartest Noctowl in its home forest full of Noctowls.
- A Shiny Shuckle was most sought out by a medicine man as its Berry Juice had special qualities to it.
- A female Shiny Donphan was the most desirable mate among a colony of Donphan.
- In one of the specials a Shiny Ariados was a leader of colony of Ariados.
- A Shiny Onix was seemingly a leader of all the Onix's on an island, at the very least all other previously angry Onix listened to it when it told them to calm down and return to their burrows.
- In the movies the Shiny Genesect is the leader of the Genesect Army.
- A Shiny Guzzlord was a leader of several Guzzlords that came through an Ultra Wormhole during the Manalo Conference.
Why Shiny Pokemon are rare feels more like the same reason albino animals are rare.
But they're ghosts.
Also, animals do fight using their blood or loosen their skin to run away.
*insert Tentaquil joke here*
IDK if I said this before, but the whole point behind Pheremosa is that it’s uber-feminine, yet has traits exclusive to males, the inverse of Buzzwole.
Speaking of Ultra Beasts, something interesting is that the stats of the version exclusive ones don’t actually line up with one-another, but for soof them they *do* line up with one that *isn’t* version-exclusive.
-You’d expect the counterpart of the Physically-inclined Buzzwole to be the Specially-inclined Nihilego... but it’s instead the hyper-frail mixed attacker Pheremosa
-You’d expect the counterpart to Kartana with it’s absurd ATK to be Xurkitree with its similarly bonkers SPA... but instead it’s the obsessively balanced Celesteela.
-And you’d expect Stakataka to have a(n as-of-right-now undesigned) counterpart with absurdly high SPD
Just another way the Ultra Beasts come across as alien.
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Regarding Origin Dialga/Palkia, I don’t love their designs but I do like that they seemingly can no longer use their signature moves: Dialga has a gem thing obstructing its throat and Palkia has no arms. This makes them feel so much more divine to me: Dialga can emanate sound out of nowhere and distort time without roaring; Palkia can rend space without arms. I think that’s neat.
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Origina Dialga doesn't have anything obstructing its throat, the old football in the throat memes were because we had one image of it and it was kind of small
it's more obvious in game
it's basically a neck brace, or a frill. It "attaches", or covers, the neck but doesnt obstruct it
The recent discussion about Battle Facilities in the unpops thread reminded me of several things I like related to that. I like the Battle Frontiers, but I don’t think they are the greatest thing ever made. But they are very fun and there are a lot of good things about them. One thing about the Emerald Frontier which often seems to be overlooked is all of the extra things that you can do there outside of battling in the facilities.
There’s a wild Sudowoodo at one place, and there’s Artisan Cave which is full of Smeargle! There’s an IV judge (first one in the series), the betting man if you are into gambling, Move Tutors, there’s even an in-game trade! There’s also a ton of things you can buy for BP. Not only items which are useful for battling at the Frontier, but also decorations for your Secret Base. Like plushies of various Pokémon. I think those extras about the Emerald Frontier are highly underappreciated.
I also like how big the Emerald Frontier is. They could just have slapped the seven facilities next to each other in a small area and called it a day, but no, they made it into a really big place.
In comparison, I feel that the Platinum Frontier was missing a lot of these things. It was very small (I remember that this disappointed me greatly the first time I arrived at it), and the only new things it had compared to the D/P Battle Park were the Scratch-Off minigame and the return of the IV judge. Otherwise, all the prizes and things you could buy for BP were the same as in D/P. I still like the Platinum Frontier, but it did not give me the same positive first impression that the Emerald Frontier did.
Next, let’s look at the Battle Resort in OR/AS. Similar to the Frontier in Emerald, it has a lot of extra things to do outside of the Battle Maison. There’s a Day Care (with a perfect hatching circle to go along with it), the IV judge lives in the Pokémon Center here, there are Move Tutors (all in the same place, which is something I appreciate), you can change the background music, play a minigame with Whismur, get a small bit of story with two grunts from Team Aqua and Magma, and there are five regular trainers you can rebattle daily. One thing I like about these five trainers is how they use the remaining five types which aren’t used by any Gym Leader or Elite Four/Champion in Hoenn. This means that OR/AS has a specialist for each type.
In total, it feels like the Battle Resort has something for everyone, no matter if you are a casual, hardcore or semi-competitive player. Because of these things, it feels like a spiritual successor to the Emerald Battle Frontier for me. Compare this to the R/S Battle Tower which had literally nothing to do outside of battling at the Tower. Both Emerald and OR/AS were massive improvements over that.
Similar to the Battle Resort in OR/AS, there’s Kiloude City in X/Y. It also has a lot to do outside of the Battle Maison, but that is sort of expected since it is a city. Though it doesn’t matter as I think Kiloude is a great city no matter how you look at it.
Another thing I like, which was pointed out by Ransei in the unpops thread, is how the Battle Chatelaines have such distinct personalities. For being post-game superbosses that many players probably never even reached, they sure have a lot of detail when it comes to both their designs and personalities. I appreciate that a lot. I also like how their dialogue in OR/AS was changed to reflect how they are now in Hoenn instead of Kalos.
Lastly, let’s turn something negative into something positive! I know many people disliked the lack of a Battle Frontier in OR/AS, but personally, I prefer to look on the positive side, so I like how OR/AS included the Battle Maison! Was it the best thing they could have done? Maybe not. Was it still fun and good enough? Yes! In my opinion, at least.
There’s a wild Sudowoodo at one place, and there’s Artisan Cave which is full of Smeargle! There’s an IV judge (first one in the series), the betting man if you are into gambling, Move Tutors, there’s even an in-game trade! There’s also a ton of things you can buy for BP. Not only items which are useful for battling at the Frontier, but also decorations for your Secret Base. Like plushies of various Pokémon. I think those extras about the Emerald Frontier are highly underappreciated.
I also like how big the Emerald Frontier is. They could just have slapped the seven facilities next to each other in a small area and called it a day, but no, they made it into a really big place.
In comparison, I feel that the Platinum Frontier was missing a lot of these things. It was very small (I remember that this disappointed me greatly the first time I arrived at it), and the only new things it had compared to the D/P Battle Park were the Scratch-Off minigame and the return of the IV judge. Otherwise, all the prizes and things you could buy for BP were the same as in D/P. I still like the Platinum Frontier, but it did not give me the same positive first impression that the Emerald Frontier did.
Next, let’s look at the Battle Resort in OR/AS. Similar to the Frontier in Emerald, it has a lot of extra things to do outside of the Battle Maison. There’s a Day Care (with a perfect hatching circle to go along with it), the IV judge lives in the Pokémon Center here, there are Move Tutors (all in the same place, which is something I appreciate), you can change the background music, play a minigame with Whismur, get a small bit of story with two grunts from Team Aqua and Magma, and there are five regular trainers you can rebattle daily. One thing I like about these five trainers is how they use the remaining five types which aren’t used by any Gym Leader or Elite Four/Champion in Hoenn. This means that OR/AS has a specialist for each type.
In total, it feels like the Battle Resort has something for everyone, no matter if you are a casual, hardcore or semi-competitive player. Because of these things, it feels like a spiritual successor to the Emerald Battle Frontier for me. Compare this to the R/S Battle Tower which had literally nothing to do outside of battling at the Tower. Both Emerald and OR/AS were massive improvements over that.
Similar to the Battle Resort in OR/AS, there’s Kiloude City in X/Y. It also has a lot to do outside of the Battle Maison, but that is sort of expected since it is a city. Though it doesn’t matter as I think Kiloude is a great city no matter how you look at it.
Another thing I like, which was pointed out by Ransei in the unpops thread, is how the Battle Chatelaines have such distinct personalities. For being post-game superbosses that many players probably never even reached, they sure have a lot of detail when it comes to both their designs and personalities. I appreciate that a lot. I also like how their dialogue in OR/AS was changed to reflect how they are now in Hoenn instead of Kalos.
Lastly, let’s turn something negative into something positive! I know many people disliked the lack of a Battle Frontier in OR/AS, but personally, I prefer to look on the positive side, so I like how OR/AS included the Battle Maison! Was it the best thing they could have done? Maybe not. Was it still fun and good enough? Yes! In my opinion, at least.
There is a bit of context I do want to point out at least on the last couple examples that doesn't contradict the "shinies can be special to Wild Pokemon" premise, but does I feel make those examples more questionable in support of it.
- For the Genesect, there's the Elephant in the Room of them being artificially created/revived and experimented on, which there is great evidence for not putting in their right mind. The movie also demonstrates that even when disobedient, the Red Genesect seems to have the ability to mind control the others, so depending on their awareness its leadership might not be a matter of respect or reverence.
- Of the Guzzlord that attacked the Manalo Conference, I didn't really get the sense they had a leader or any coordination, since they all came out of (and were sent back through) different Wormholes and fought separate groups of the cast. The largest was a Shiny, but 2/3 in the incident were in general, so I think it was mostly to be eye-catching on our part given Guzzlord's so Alien and the audience is more familiar with it than any of the characters by comparison (assuming Gen 7 players also watch the anime then).
In the case of Guzzlord I also wonder if that kind of respect or special treatment would matter, as it's often depicted as rarer and higher class than the others (receiving a 2-Parter in the Anime, being a solitary appearance vs several other UB species spawning multiples or at least depicting several on screen within one game, being the last one to appear in the initial SM games). This gives me this impression that even in its home world setting, Guzzlord would be akin to an Apex Predator, a Pokemon that wouldn't exist in great number for biological and ecological reasons to begin with, and by its nature as an eating machine would not be able to live in regular-interaction distance of another of its kind due to competing for sustenance or risk of out-eating its environment's ability to sustain (something it is arguably depicted as doing when left unchecked in other world appearances).
Looking at some of the beta information of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire beta, I am grateful the devs made changes to some of the Pokemon in the final. Swampert being given the gound-type makes it a significantly better Pokemon than it was in the beta. Although tailow being the first pure flying-type in the beta is cool, I think the Normal-typing is a massive benefit to it overall since it its gives it a very strong STAB Facade and Boomburst. Thank god they buffed Mightyena's stats so greatly since it would have been even more pathetic than it already is. This is even more apparent than Shedinja, where it would have had most of its BST wasted on defenses instead of stats that actually matter.
EDIT: Actually, it seems like a lot of Pokemon had significantly worse stats in the beta. I am guessing this was done to make the game easier for devs to go through and playtest. Some stuff is cool though, like Wailord having higher Speed, Sableye being faster, etc.
EDIT 2: It seems like most Pokemon had their stats set to 60 by default. This applied to stuff like Swellow, Torkoal, Minum, etc.
EDIT: Actually, it seems like a lot of Pokemon had significantly worse stats in the beta. I am guessing this was done to make the game easier for devs to go through and playtest. Some stuff is cool though, like Wailord having higher Speed, Sableye being faster, etc.
EDIT 2: It seems like most Pokemon had their stats set to 60 by default. This applied to stuff like Swellow, Torkoal, Minum, etc.
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I like Mega Heracross as a more battle-oriented player myself, since it capitalizes on what Heracross was usually best at: hitting like a truck with a tricky STAB combination while having a decently useable defensive profile to work with. In another respect I also just like the look of Mega Heracross.
One thing I like about it as a Mega for an already-decent Pokemon (as opposed to something like Mawile or higher-tier Charizard being made viable strictly because of the Mega) is that while it was more used in practice than base form, the concept is moreso to add another option with its own trade-offs to the Mon (in this case the Mega Slot being a big one) than just be the base form but more effective as was the case with stuff like Medicham, Latias, Scizor, to name a few. Mega Heracross trades off its base abilities and item options (most substantial/distinct in this case probably Choice Scarf), which gives up a Revenge Killing/Cleaning role for Scarf Speed and pseudo-status-immunity via Guts-Orb sets, in exchange for new coverage (Rock Blast and Bullet Seed), circumventing Substitutes in its Defensive-shredding playstyle, less Contact damage (so less punished by stuff like Flame Body or Rocky Helmet), and better match-ups for wall-breaking via immediate power and bulk. On paper there are plenty of scenarios where, despite being good at what it does, Mega Heracross may be a less optimal fit for your team than an item-holding Base Heracross, which I think is a good compromise on the mechanic since it is supposed to be a one-off trump card on the team.
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I never really thought that much about Mega Heracross being designed to replace Megahorn with Pin Missile. I always figured Skill Link was mostly to give it a semi-unique Fighting STAB in Arm Thrust. After all, its main counterpart in Mega Pinsir has several unique options for its secondary STAB thanks to Aerialate.
Another interesting aspect of Mega Heracross is that it can also incentivize not going Mega immidiately since it misses out on the potential for Moxie boosts. It's not unique in this aspect among megas, but it's cool nonetheless.
Another interesting aspect of Mega Heracross is that it can also incentivize not going Mega immidiately since it misses out on the potential for Moxie boosts. It's not unique in this aspect among megas, but it's cool nonetheless.
In practice, Mega Heracross never really ran Arm Thrust. Unlike a lot of other multi-hit moves, Arm Thrust is only 15 power per hit, so with Skill Link it's only as strong as Brick Break.
Rock Blast also wasn't really new coverage (just more consistent coverage), since it already had access to Rock Slide and Stone Edge. Bullet Seed was new though.
The anime albums 2.B.A. Master and Totally Pokemon are filled with music tracks I listen to now and again that really make my heart soar.
As far as games go, I just enjoy teambuilding and making a monster team that represents my creativity or what monsters I enjoy using. It's a big part of why I can't stand Johto and Galar because alot of that isn't really there.
As far as games go, I just enjoy teambuilding and making a monster team that represents my creativity or what monsters I enjoy using. It's a big part of why I can't stand Johto and Galar because alot of that isn't really there.
Yeah, I did harp on Mega Hera a bit in the other thread, but I also like it quite a bit for the reasons you mentioned. Having significantly higher bulk than normal Heracross + relying less on contact moves and Flame Orb for its power gives Mega Heracross a much better defensive profile in practice, though the trade off is that status from Scald burns and other stuff is quite annoying for it to deal with. Still, with Misty Terrain support from Tapu Fini (which I didn't actually consider when playing SM) this becomes less of an issue. I do like Megas that have differing strengths from their base forms, like Slowbro, Garchomp, and Sabelye since it does allow them to be played a bit more dynamically, where you make use of the base forms strengths (like Sableye's Prankster Will-O Wsip or Slowbro's regenerator before going Mega.
I like Mega Heracross as a more battle-oriented player myself, since it capitalizes on what Heracross was usually best at: hitting like a truck with a tricky STAB combination while having a decently useable defensive profile to work with. In another respect I also just like that Mega Heracross.
One thing I like about it as a Mega for an already-decent Pokemon (as opposed to something like Mawile or higher-tier Charizard being made viable strictly because of the Mega) is that while it was more used in practice than base form, the concept is moreso to add another option with its own trade-offs to the Mon (in this case the Mega Slot being a big one) than just be the base form but more effective as was the case with stuff like Medicham, Latias, Scizor, to name a few. Mega Heracross trades off its base abilities and item options (most substantial/distinct in this case probably Choice Scarf), which gives up a Revenge Killing/Cleaning role for Scarf Speed and pseudo-status-immunity via Guts-Orb sets, in exchange for new coverage (Rock Blast and Bullet Seed), circumventing Substitutes in its Defensive-shredding playstyle, less Contact damage (so less punished by stuff like Flame Body or Rocky Helmet), and better match-ups for wall-breaking via immediate power and bulk. On paper there are plenty of scenarios where, despite being good at what it does, Mega Heracross may be a less optimal fit for your team than an item-holding Base Heracross, which I think is a good compromise on the mechanic since it is supposed to be a one-off trump card on the team.
To be fair, I normally ran Mega Heracross with Megahorn instead of Pin Missile, though this was to allow it to use a strong bug STAB move in case it got statused. Moxie is probably the better ability in retrospect though.
I do like galaxy brain strats where you do not go Mega immediately. In XY when I ran Mega Charizard X, I loved staying non-Mega against Pokemon like Landorus-T, Mega Mawile and Heatran, since they would normally just go for a Ground-type or Fairy-type move against me, predicting me to Mega. Staying non-Mega was great because I could get free set up on them before going Mega and sweeping.
I prefer the stag beetle myself despite my weakness for the color blue. Pinsir has somewhat grown on me over the years. I used to think he was scary, lol. I actually think it was his Mega that made him more appealing to me since I had no idea until that point they kept him stuck with a huge Normal movepool that was borderline useless.
I started playing the original Pokémon Snap today, and while it's a fun game on its own, it really made me appreciate how much Pokémon's worldbuilding has come. Pokémon Island has a generic name and no real lore outside of "Mew, cool!", whereas the Lental islands have unique names and a backstory you need to uncover.
I want to say more nice things about battle facilities. I have recently gone back to the Battle Pyramid in Emerald as the next part of my project. The Pyramid is one of my two favorites in Emerald and I have talked about most of the things I like about it in a previous post. However, one thing I don’t think I have mentioned is how varied it is when it comes to the themes for the wild Pokémon. Every round has a theme, there are a total of 20 different ones.
I like how creative many of these themes are. Some are just standard things like types or status, but many of them are a bit more in-depth. I think the most notable ones are PP stalling, Levitate, trapping Abilities (Arena Trap/Shadow Tag), Explosion/Selfdestruct, Weather moves, Dragon-like Pokémon, and Pokémon that evolve with Thunder/Fire/Water Stones. Really cool.
I also like how there are 20 different themes instead of just 10. They could have stopped at 10 since you only need to go through 10 rounds before reaching Gold Brandon, but they decided to have 10 more afterwards. Basically, the Pyramid “rewards” you for continuing after beating the boss by having 10 new themes. I like that a lot.
Speaking of which, I also like how the standard battle facilities pretty much always have extra rewards after you beat the boss. The R/S/E Battle Tower gives you a Gold Shield if you win 100 battles in a row. The Tower in Gen 4 similarly gives you a Gold Trophy for 100 wins in a row, and a TC upgrade as well. The Subway/Maison/Tree gives you a Lansat Berry for winning 100 battles in a row, and a Starf Berry for winning 200 battles in a row! I think those are great rewards and on a personal level, they encourage me to continue after beating the boss in order to try to get all the rewards.
Next, I want to talk a bit more about battle facility bosses. First, one more thing about the Battle Chatelaines I randomly learned from Bulbapedia:
“The length of their gloves represent their age. For example, Morgan, who is the oldest, has gloves all the way up from her hands to her shoulders, while Nita, who is the youngest, only has gloves that cover her hands.”
I never noticed that. Another thing I noted is that the same thing seems to happen for their hair. Nita is the youngest and has the shortest hair, Evelyn has slightly longer, Dana even longer, and Morgan has the longest. At least that’s what it looks like going by their official art. And yet another thing I noticed about the Chatelaines is that they have the Battle Maison symbol on the top of their hats. There’s a lot of detail put in their design and I think that’s amazing.
There’s also one thing I have always liked about the Emerald Frontier Brains. How their names reference the theme of their respective facility, with the first letter or syllable being the same.
Anabel – Ability
Spenser – Spirit
Noland – Knowledge
Brandon – Bravery
Tucker – Tactics
Greta – Guts
Lucy – Luck
I like that a lot.
Onto something else. Some more areas I like in the games. First two from Castelia City.
I really like this little park, with a single tree in the middle and grass around it. It feels like a nice place to relax in comparison to the rest of the city which is always very active and bustling. I also like the quote from the NPC there, he says that this was apparently where it all began for Castelia City, adding just a tiny bit of backstory which can set your imagination on fire. Or at least mine. It is such a neat little detail and I love it.
The second is the back alley of the city. I think it is really cool as it is sort of a “secret” area which you can only access if you go back and go through the sewers again once you have Surf. I like the atmosphere it gives, it is industrial with a somewhat criminal undertone. There’s a trio of trainers hanging out here, in their own little secret turf of the town. What are they up to? I guess I’ll find out when I make it there on my current playthrough of Black 2.
Next, an area from Sinnoh.
I really like the Foreign Building. The atmosphere is really great, it reminds me of a real church, which it what it seems to be based on as well. There’s no music, it is one of the very few places in the games where it is completely silent. I can really appreciate the silence there. I also like all of the NPCs here and the small words of wisdom they give.
Other areas I like are the Pokémon Leagues from Gen 4 and on. I think someone else might have posted this in this thread earlier, but I’m echoing their sentiment in that case. I like how these Pokémon Leagues feel more impressive than the ones in Gen 1-3. Those were just big buildings, but the ones from Gen 4-7 are much cooler. Sinnoh has a huge castle, Unova a massive temple-like area within a mountain, Kalos another castle and Alola a hollow mountain with a transparent walls at the top.
On Route 8 in the Unova games, there’s a Parasol Lady who gives out a weather stone once a day (Heat/Damp/Smooth/Icy Rock), which one depends on the current time. Afterwards, she says: “Come back tomorrow, I’ll be here, I pumice.” I always wondered why she said pumice instead of promise. I never thought much of it in the past, but I decided to look it up recently and I learned that pumice is actually a type of stone! Which I had heard about before, I just didn’t know the English name of it. Either way, that is a genius play on words. It only took me 10 years to actually get the hang of it.
I really like the way sorting items in the bag works in Gen 5. Especially for the main items. If you choose “by type”, items automatically get sorted in 5 subcategories and they are ordered alphabetically within each category. That’s just so great. Unfortunately, Gen 6 and on decided to screw this up really hard. Fortunately, you can still order items alphabetically in these games which makes it a bit more manageable.
Lastly, something I just randomly thought of that might be one of my top favorite things in the entire series. The sheer amount of content in B2/W2. Those games are filled to the brim, there’s so much to do and it is a lot of fun! In my opinion, at least. I am amazed at how they managed to fit so much content into a single game pair. On the DS, no less. But at the same time, B2/W2 were the last games for the DS, so I guess they really decided to go all out.
I like how creative many of these themes are. Some are just standard things like types or status, but many of them are a bit more in-depth. I think the most notable ones are PP stalling, Levitate, trapping Abilities (Arena Trap/Shadow Tag), Explosion/Selfdestruct, Weather moves, Dragon-like Pokémon, and Pokémon that evolve with Thunder/Fire/Water Stones. Really cool.
I also like how there are 20 different themes instead of just 10. They could have stopped at 10 since you only need to go through 10 rounds before reaching Gold Brandon, but they decided to have 10 more afterwards. Basically, the Pyramid “rewards” you for continuing after beating the boss by having 10 new themes. I like that a lot.
Speaking of which, I also like how the standard battle facilities pretty much always have extra rewards after you beat the boss. The R/S/E Battle Tower gives you a Gold Shield if you win 100 battles in a row. The Tower in Gen 4 similarly gives you a Gold Trophy for 100 wins in a row, and a TC upgrade as well. The Subway/Maison/Tree gives you a Lansat Berry for winning 100 battles in a row, and a Starf Berry for winning 200 battles in a row! I think those are great rewards and on a personal level, they encourage me to continue after beating the boss in order to try to get all the rewards.
Next, I want to talk a bit more about battle facility bosses. First, one more thing about the Battle Chatelaines I randomly learned from Bulbapedia:
“The length of their gloves represent their age. For example, Morgan, who is the oldest, has gloves all the way up from her hands to her shoulders, while Nita, who is the youngest, only has gloves that cover her hands.”
I never noticed that. Another thing I noted is that the same thing seems to happen for their hair. Nita is the youngest and has the shortest hair, Evelyn has slightly longer, Dana even longer, and Morgan has the longest. At least that’s what it looks like going by their official art. And yet another thing I noticed about the Chatelaines is that they have the Battle Maison symbol on the top of their hats. There’s a lot of detail put in their design and I think that’s amazing.
There’s also one thing I have always liked about the Emerald Frontier Brains. How their names reference the theme of their respective facility, with the first letter or syllable being the same.
Anabel – Ability
Spenser – Spirit
Noland – Knowledge
Brandon – Bravery
Tucker – Tactics
Greta – Guts
Lucy – Luck
I like that a lot.
Onto something else. Some more areas I like in the games. First two from Castelia City.
I really like this little park, with a single tree in the middle and grass around it. It feels like a nice place to relax in comparison to the rest of the city which is always very active and bustling. I also like the quote from the NPC there, he says that this was apparently where it all began for Castelia City, adding just a tiny bit of backstory which can set your imagination on fire. Or at least mine. It is such a neat little detail and I love it.
The second is the back alley of the city. I think it is really cool as it is sort of a “secret” area which you can only access if you go back and go through the sewers again once you have Surf. I like the atmosphere it gives, it is industrial with a somewhat criminal undertone. There’s a trio of trainers hanging out here, in their own little secret turf of the town. What are they up to? I guess I’ll find out when I make it there on my current playthrough of Black 2.
Next, an area from Sinnoh.
I really like the Foreign Building. The atmosphere is really great, it reminds me of a real church, which it what it seems to be based on as well. There’s no music, it is one of the very few places in the games where it is completely silent. I can really appreciate the silence there. I also like all of the NPCs here and the small words of wisdom they give.
Other areas I like are the Pokémon Leagues from Gen 4 and on. I think someone else might have posted this in this thread earlier, but I’m echoing their sentiment in that case. I like how these Pokémon Leagues feel more impressive than the ones in Gen 1-3. Those were just big buildings, but the ones from Gen 4-7 are much cooler. Sinnoh has a huge castle, Unova a massive temple-like area within a mountain, Kalos another castle and Alola a hollow mountain with a transparent walls at the top.
On Route 8 in the Unova games, there’s a Parasol Lady who gives out a weather stone once a day (Heat/Damp/Smooth/Icy Rock), which one depends on the current time. Afterwards, she says: “Come back tomorrow, I’ll be here, I pumice.” I always wondered why she said pumice instead of promise. I never thought much of it in the past, but I decided to look it up recently and I learned that pumice is actually a type of stone! Which I had heard about before, I just didn’t know the English name of it. Either way, that is a genius play on words. It only took me 10 years to actually get the hang of it.
I really like the way sorting items in the bag works in Gen 5. Especially for the main items. If you choose “by type”, items automatically get sorted in 5 subcategories and they are ordered alphabetically within each category. That’s just so great. Unfortunately, Gen 6 and on decided to screw this up really hard. Fortunately, you can still order items alphabetically in these games which makes it a bit more manageable.
Lastly, something I just randomly thought of that might be one of my top favorite things in the entire series. The sheer amount of content in B2/W2. Those games are filled to the brim, there’s so much to do and it is a lot of fun! In my opinion, at least. I am amazed at how they managed to fit so much content into a single game pair. On the DS, no less. But at the same time, B2/W2 were the last games for the DS, so I guess they really decided to go all out.
I love Alola's approach to music in general. We've had Pokémon games where they use leitmotifs before, like for an example Colress' encounter theme and his battle theme sharing the same leitmotif (Something that tends to be true to a lot of characters), but Alola went a lot deeper than that and basically uses leitmotifs as a storytelling device and it's surprisingly effective. I can't list everything here because there's a lot of different leitotifs in this game, but I'll go over some of the most notable ones.
(For those who don't know, a Leitmotif is essentially a short sequence of notes used to represent a character or a concept; hopefully by seeing what's in this post you can understand it prety clearly)
So for starters, Alola is the first region to actually have a leitmotiff that represents the whole region. Here it is, in Welcome To Alola, as well as the cutscene when you wake up. But it also plays elsewhere, sometimes remixed:
- As the Player's House, at the start of your journey
- Various times over during the Route 10, more or less at the midpoint of the game
- In a portion of Mt Lanakila right before the Elite 4
- Remixed in the champion theme here and here, where the Player's Journey comes to an end. This is also technically the Player's theme
- In one of the Ultra Space realms, in reverse
Another really awesome one is the Tapu's theme. It can first be heard in the cutscene where Koko saves you and Nebby. But many other times as well:
- The Tapu battle theme itself, obviously
- The Tapu Ruins (Side note, the ruins theme also uses bits of the intro to the Tapu battle theme as its main melody)
- The Iki Town Festival thrown as a celebration to Tapu Koko
- Here and here on the Kahuna battle theme! This is to kind of solidify the connection between the Kahunas and the Tapu and its awesome.
- On the Kahuna's encounter theme (Side note, the encounter theme is almost entirely based on another part of the Tapu battle theme)
One that actually serves as a plot point. The Aether Foundation is also used in:
- Aether Foundation Employee and Lusamine, unsurprisingly
- Here's the interesting part though, its also used with Guzma! You battle Guzma before he's even revealed to be colaborating with the Aether Foundation so this actually serves as a form of subtle foreshadowing
Ultra Space itself gets a leitmotif! This is reflected in:
- The Ultra Beast theme
- During Ultra Warp Ride
- In Ultra Recon Squad's battle theme
Another thing that particularly sticks out to me is the Champion Theme. As mentioned before, it uses the Alola Theme, but it also uses:
- The Trial theme (For reference)
- One of the two main themes of the franchise, which is also mostly known for being Red's theme
- A section of the Game Intro. This section has been with us ever since RBY, and is used in pretty much every mainline intro (for other examples, see here and here)
And to close off the post, Nebby's theme! This one I actually had a little compilation ready-
These aren't all the leitmotifs that are in the game, but they are the ones I felt like highlighting the most. Gen 7 is my favourite gen by a long shot and being someone who really enjoys this kind of unique storytelling definitely influenced that a lot. Hope yalls can appreciate this as much as I do!
(For those who don't know, a Leitmotif is essentially a short sequence of notes used to represent a character or a concept; hopefully by seeing what's in this post you can understand it prety clearly)
So for starters, Alola is the first region to actually have a leitmotiff that represents the whole region. Here it is, in Welcome To Alola, as well as the cutscene when you wake up. But it also plays elsewhere, sometimes remixed:
- As the Player's House, at the start of your journey
- Various times over during the Route 10, more or less at the midpoint of the game
- In a portion of Mt Lanakila right before the Elite 4
- Remixed in the champion theme here and here, where the Player's Journey comes to an end. This is also technically the Player's theme
- In one of the Ultra Space realms, in reverse
Another really awesome one is the Tapu's theme. It can first be heard in the cutscene where Koko saves you and Nebby. But many other times as well:
- The Tapu battle theme itself, obviously
- The Tapu Ruins (Side note, the ruins theme also uses bits of the intro to the Tapu battle theme as its main melody)
- The Iki Town Festival thrown as a celebration to Tapu Koko
- Here and here on the Kahuna battle theme! This is to kind of solidify the connection between the Kahunas and the Tapu and its awesome.
- On the Kahuna's encounter theme (Side note, the encounter theme is almost entirely based on another part of the Tapu battle theme)
One that actually serves as a plot point. The Aether Foundation is also used in:
- Aether Foundation Employee and Lusamine, unsurprisingly
- Here's the interesting part though, its also used with Guzma! You battle Guzma before he's even revealed to be colaborating with the Aether Foundation so this actually serves as a form of subtle foreshadowing
Ultra Space itself gets a leitmotif! This is reflected in:
- The Ultra Beast theme
- During Ultra Warp Ride
- In Ultra Recon Squad's battle theme
Another thing that particularly sticks out to me is the Champion Theme. As mentioned before, it uses the Alola Theme, but it also uses:
- The Trial theme (For reference)
- One of the two main themes of the franchise, which is also mostly known for being Red's theme
- A section of the Game Intro. This section has been with us ever since RBY, and is used in pretty much every mainline intro (for other examples, see here and here)
And to close off the post, Nebby's theme! This one I actually had a little compilation ready-
These aren't all the leitmotifs that are in the game, but they are the ones I felt like highlighting the most. Gen 7 is my favourite gen by a long shot and being someone who really enjoys this kind of unique storytelling definitely influenced that a lot. Hope yalls can appreciate this as much as I do!
Pretty much everything about Sun and Moon felt like they just took notes on features and story elements from Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth and Yo-Kai Watch with arguably less quality but that's certainly not a bad thing with how good said games are.
I certainly found things like PokePelago cute.
I certainly found things like PokePelago cute.
that really sick inverted / darkened color effect certain moves like Hyper Beam and Destiny Bond did in the first two generations! Behold inverted Porygon, courtesy of that recent False Swipe Gaming video:
there's Destiny Bond
Destiny Bond in particular has always stuck out as a weirdly awesome move to me even as a kid. I remember seeing it first in the Hoenn anime when Katie's Misdreavus used it on Glalie.
(excuse the small picture)
What weirds me out about the Misdreavus use specifically is that the anime chose a Pokemon to use Destiny Bond with that only got the move through breeding. I know the anime is well-known for not exactly being a great portrayal of the games until probably later on in its life (goodness knows all the BS in the Kanto saga) but you'd think they'd at least pick a mon that learned Destiny Bond naturally.
But yeah back to Destiny Bond as a move. Around the time Generation 3 came out, only a handful of Pokemon knew the move, and outside the Gastly line I wouldn't call any of the other users popular Pokemon in the slightest. I think Destiny Bond has an awesome name, would probably surprise a newbie competitive player, and a great effect of a double KO, but anything that involves trapping Abilities / Destiny Bond is also woefully unbalanced (I have no idea why they brought that back with Mega Gengar's Shadow Tag). The Gen VII consecutive turn nerf to Destiny Bond was likewise a great decision.
So yeah, Destiny Bond is a great move!
there's Destiny Bond
Destiny Bond in particular has always stuck out as a weirdly awesome move to me even as a kid. I remember seeing it first in the Hoenn anime when Katie's Misdreavus used it on Glalie.
(excuse the small picture)
What weirds me out about the Misdreavus use specifically is that the anime chose a Pokemon to use Destiny Bond with that only got the move through breeding. I know the anime is well-known for not exactly being a great portrayal of the games until probably later on in its life (goodness knows all the BS in the Kanto saga) but you'd think they'd at least pick a mon that learned Destiny Bond naturally.
But yeah back to Destiny Bond as a move. Around the time Generation 3 came out, only a handful of Pokemon knew the move, and outside the Gastly line I wouldn't call any of the other users popular Pokemon in the slightest. I think Destiny Bond has an awesome name, would probably surprise a newbie competitive player, and a great effect of a double KO, but anything that involves trapping Abilities / Destiny Bond is also woefully unbalanced (I have no idea why they brought that back with Mega Gengar's Shadow Tag). The Gen VII consecutive turn nerf to Destiny Bond was likewise a great decision.
So yeah, Destiny Bond is a great move!
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That Katie battle was excellent and sadly forgotten. Great example of a competitive style trainer without making one into a raging jerk. She cared about her team, treated them well, but played the odds.
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Correct me if I misremember, but was Wobbuffet with Shadow Tag and Encore/Destiny Bond a thing people used during Gen 3, or was it like Baton Pass or Clefable where it came late/after the Generation despite the pieces existing in it already? I guess that also depends to an extent on what we mean by "popular" (since I don't imagine Wobbuffet is well liked even when it is used effectively a lot).
Yeah Wobbuffet was a thing and I knew it was but I doubt casual players knew it was that good. I have literally had a casual player tell me Wobbuffet isn’t good in person, to my memory.
but yeah Wobbuffet was broken back then. Wouldn’t call it popular though, given how hard it is to use.
Wobbuffet was banned from OU in gen 3 because back then any matchup between two Wobb that both had Leftovers was an endless battle. I don't remember it being used much in Ubers, but we didn't have proper usage stats back then, so who knows. I don't remember Wobb doing a whole lot with Destiny Bond, though I'm sure it often carried that move if only because it didn't have much else. The more common thing (which my memory is associating more with gen 4) was to use Encore to turn an opposing Pokemon into setup bait for a teammate. This play could also generate a lot of salt.