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Sprigatito evolution Grass/Psychic Iberian Lynx (lynx r know 2 have psychic powers), Sig move about Kneading
Fuecoco evolution Fire/Ghost Ghost Pepper Quetzalcoatl Serpent thing (we still have the zodiac going) Sig move Hex clone
Quaxly evolution Water/Fighting Don Quixote Eurasian Teal Sig move Trop Kick Clone (I guess maybe waxing?)
Cyclizar does not do the Cosmog thing
Legend Typings are Dragon/Fighting and Dragon/Electric
Regional forms of Mandibuzz(based on Rüppell’s Vulture, Ghost/Flying idk) and Whimsicott(prob Grass w/ a dual type along lines of dark)
These just my predictions not leaks
(casually disregards Feraligatr, Swampert, and Primarina)
And come on there are so many extinct species that you can find one to match pretty much any Pokemon.
(casually disregards Feraligatr, Swampert, and Primarina)
And come on there are so many extinct species that you can find one to match pretty much any Pokemon.
Kind of, but not really. It could be, sure, or they could have just picked a convenient set of levels to do the battle at so things look right if you don't know the base stats.
That said, I think if there were serious changes to the formula, it'd have been leaked. That's the sort of thing everyone with access to the dev builds would know. (I'm not following the leaks, but mods wouldn't be able to quash discussion of something that big)
The Chinese Zodiac was already disproven by the original Fire Bear starter, Cyndaquil anyways, Fennekin, and Fuecoco.
Embrace that Brazilian Football theory instead.
I'll be honest chief I think it'd be in incredibly poor taste for the Spain region to have a starter based on mesoamerican culture, for reasons that should be pretty obvious
That said, I think if there were serious changes to the formula, it'd have been leaked. That's the sort of thing everyone with access to the dev builds would know. (I'm not following the leaks, but mods wouldn't be able to quash discussion of something that big)
Not gonna go too deep into leak talk but the stuff that's been leaked comes off more as "someone got their hands on the game early and is just playing through" rather than someone actually dataming the game. I could be wrong but this also has been a very bizarre leak season overall.
Game Freak was obviously NOT following the Fire Zodiac from Gen 1, because they weren't even panning on making that many games. As such, Cyndaquil was not originally designed to be a rat.
Later on, it seems like Game Freak decided to use the Chinese Zodiac for inspiration for their fire starters as, even though cyndaquil wasn't originally designed to be the rat, it fits well enough considering the fact that no pokemon is exactly on animal, most have multiple inspirations and evolutionary lines confuse the issue anyway. There's a good chance that fans saw the "pattern" before Game Freak even decided to follow the pattern consciously. But it seems like they did, as 8 in a row out of 12 is a ridiculous coincidence.
And yes, a fox is not a Canis lupus familiarus. But people who say that miss the point entirely. Canines are the "dog family", from foxes to coyotes to dingoes to wolves to jackals, and pokemon are loose inspirations anyway. The poochyena line is a mix of hyenas and wolves, despite the fact the hyenas are more closely related to cats than canines.
As an amateur writer, i can tell you we jump on the chance to retroactively give things a better connection.
Now, Fueccoco is probably NOT going to be the snake, but snivy didn't look like it was going to be a snake either, and that doesn't change the fact that Game Freak is allowed to change their mind. They knew they couldn't keep up with the Chinese zodiac forever as that only covers 12 gens.
(That said, I've always thought the grass and water patterns were reaching. The fire zodiac made predictions that kept delivering for a long time. The other patterns never did this)
EDIT: I really doubt Game Freak would avoid the goldmine of the Spain-Meso-American connection over something like poor taste. They haven't exactly indicated their eagerness to avoid offense over past atrocities before.
Game Freak was obviously NOT following the Fire Zodiac from Gen 1, because they weren't even panning on making that many games. As such, Cyndaquil was not originally designed to be a rat.
Later on, it seems like Game Freak decided to use the Chinese Zodiac for inspiration for their fire starters as, even though cyndaquil wasn't originally designed to be the rat, it fits well enough considering the fact that no pokemon is exactly on animal, most have multiple inspirations and evolutionary lines confuse the issue anyway. There's a good chance that fans saw the "pattern" before Game Freak even decided to follow the pattern consciously. But it seems like they did, as 8 in a row out of 12 is a ridiculous coincidence.
And yes, a fox is not a Canis lupus familiarus. But people who say that miss the point entirely. Canines are the "dog family", from foxes to coyotes to dingoes to wolves to jackals, and pokemon are loose inspirations anyway. The poochyena line is a mix of hyenas and wolves, despite the fact the hyenas are more closely related to cats than canines.
As an amateur writer, i can tell you we jump on the chance to retroactively give things a better connection.
Now, Fueccoco is probably NOT going to be the snake, but snivy didn't look like it was going to be a snake either, and that doesn't change the fact that Game Freak is allowed to change their mind. They knew they couldn't keep up with the Chinese zodiac forever as that only covers 12 gens.
(That said, I've always thought the grass and water patterns were reaching. The fire zodiac made predictions that kept delivering for a long time. The other patterns never did this)
EDIT: I really doubt Game Freak would avoid the goldmine of the Spain-Meso-American connection over something like poor taste. They haven't exactly indicated their eagerness to avoid offense over past atrocities before.
You know, I recently turned in my Thesis a few weeks ago and I have been interested in using Regression model for the Zodiac Theory like I did with crime statistics in my Thesis.
I would need a community vote featuring both believers, non-believers, and outsiders, and other potential factors like popularity rankings or comparing them to the other starters. We would also need a larger sample size, which is unfortunate since we only have 9 Gens.
This wouldn’t be so much as to actually prove or disprove the Zodiac, but I think it would be fun.
I think something people who believe in the Chinese Zodiac theory need to realize is that the Chinese Zodiac also happens to have Popular Animals (crazy I know).
Like Cinderace is based on a Rabbit, which is a pretty popular animal. If the Zodiac animals were extremely obscure animals, Cyndaquil being the “Fire Mouse Pokemon” (and ignoring how Typhlosion is the Volcano Pokemon and how Charmander is a Salamander not a Dragon), or Fennekin being based on the same Family as Dogs, these wouldn’t be as big of a problem for the theory.
That is until Gen 9 where Feucoco is undeniably not part of the Zodiac and likely means all the Fire starters are based on popular animals (or Brazilian Football teams).
Even if Fuecoco ends up losing its legs, which imo is actually fair game because it looks like a Pepper, it just makes the theory inconsistent.
Like you already have Gen 3/4/5/7/8 that fit fine and for each member, Gen 1 only fitting in the final stage, Gen 2 only fitting because of Pokemon Category+only for first stage and Asian Languages, Gen 6 only fitting because it’s “close enough”, and now Gen 9 where only the last Pokemon fits but only if you think Peppers are Snakes.
There are also issues like Marketing, Gen 2 Beta, entire lines being designed by different people, or how GameFreak didn’t know about the Mew/Ditto theory which was more plausable.
Anyways, going back to Feucoco, a thing I heard that was interesting is that Brazilian Witch Folklore (yes there is more Brazil).
In Brazilian Folklore, there is an Blonde Alligator Witch named Cuca who kidnaps children. Feucoco actually has blonde hair despite being a reptile. I think that Feucoco will be part Ghost Pepper and part Cuca.
If I could draw, I would draw out what I think Feucoco3 would look like, but instead try to imagine a Pepper with Gator snout, blonde hair that forms a witch hat, and standing in a cauldron. Said cauldron also has Stubby legs like Feucoco has currently.
If I could draw, I would draw out what I think Feucoco3 would look like, but instead try to imagine a Pepper with Gator snout, blonde hair that forms a witch hat, and standing in a cauldron. Said cauldron also has Stubby legs like Feucoco has currently.
There are fanartists you can commission for your random fakemon ideas, which is always fun. The literal day the official reveal of the Gen 9 starters, I got this Asparagus Sabertooth final evo for Sprigatito from Necromatador. I have 0 art skill, so trading cash for seeing my ideas actually exist is a good deal, and there's a lot of fanartists out there accepting commissions for very reasonable rates.
The Chinese Zodiac was already disproven by the original Fire Bear starter, Cyndaquil anyways, Fennekin, and Fuecoco.
Embrace that Brazilian Football theory instead. View attachment 453637
Kids these days... They're really blessed, huh? Like, just look at the scope and wonder of Paldea. The details of the interiors, all the Pokemon running around in every nook and cranny and filling the world with life. (...) Switch youngsters won't have to dream of these scenarios after putting away their DSes like we did. They won't have to speculate further about those ideas on message boards and forums as a distant fable limited to fan mockups, either. It's an actual game they'll get on their birthday or Christmas to play with their friends. It's tangible memories they'll be able to carry with them as they grow up.
While I'm not as critical as R_N (though does have a point that there's much more prettier 3D games out there and on the Switch: Xenoblade, Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest, Zelda, and even Mario and Kirby), I do also want to point out perspective in this thought.
To US, people who have likely started playing Pokemon when they were sprite games (be it on the GB or GBA), seeing the newer Pokemon games in 3D is exciting to see; especially when they do the remakes (usually...). But for kids who started playing the games with Gen VI or after, I'm curious if the games being in 3D even registers as something novel. Cause most of the games they play likely are in 3D, the only "sprites" they ever see is the menu sprites which too have evolved that they're more detailed than any sprites older players had when they played the older games. If anything, the kids will get a novel experience learning, seeing, and possibly playing the older sprite-based gens; a glimpse into the past.
As of right now, if a kid wants to play through all the regions, technically the only regions he would have to play a sprite-based game for is Johto and Unova. If they were to make a Let's Go 2 it would likely be in Johto and the next gen to have remakes is Unova (not to mention any side projects they may do which would put a region in 3D like a Legends game). And even then the overworld is mostly in 3D, only the trainers and Pokemon are sprites (in appearance anyway, I think they are "models" in how they're programmed just playing sprite animations when moving).
It's still a spectacle for sure, but I think it's more for the older players than the newer. To new players, Pokemon GO is probably the more mindblowing thing as its Pokemon in the "real world".
It's funny how there's an absurd debate around the Internet as to what Geeta is, if shes indian, if shes etc etc, lots of people trying, as if it mattered, to associate a fictional character with their birth place to feel... represented? Idk, and the truth is that Geeta is like the typical, tall, darkish, long and dark haired girl you'll find in all of south spain lol
While representation is important so I can get a player seeing a dark-skinned character and wanting to relate with them... I feel in Pokemon putting a nationality to them is a tricky subject.
My philosophy, unless stated otherwise, the character is from the region they were introduced in. I would have no issue if Geeta was from an India-based region, sounds interesting and hope a future game would take place there (it better have a Copperajah Pokeride), but unless its said so in-game I just assume Geeta is a dark-skinned Paldean. Like in SwSh we have a batch of dark-skinned characters of various shades (Hop, Leon, Rose, Bea, Nessa, Raihan, etc.) but all of them are just as Galarian as the light-skinned characters.
If you're Indian and see a bit of yourself in Geeta because her skin color is close to yours', great! She sounds to be a good character you'd want to be compared to. But just note that it is likely only skin deep, even if she isn't from Paldea she very much has taken in the Paldean culture as her own and thus represents it; much like Kabu who is originally from Hoenn but had you not been told that I would assume he was Galarian (yes, he was made to look more Asian, but so was Mustard and it sounds like he's naturally Galarian; and Bea practices martial arts which has an Asian origin but she too is naturally Galarian).
Something I was thinking might be fun to try and do is build 3 different in-game teams for the 3 stories. Even with SwSh making swapping out party members a lot more convenient, I didn't care for having a big rotating roster because I like having a progression towards a well-defined end-game team of 6.
Others have already stated why its likely not gonna work out, but if you want to raise multiple teams that shouldn't prevent you from doing it. Like, I can see the potential of becoming overleveled and/or your party at certain points just getting extra experience they don't need. So you could just swap around you team after defeating a "boss". Each story has them: Victory Road has the Gym Leaders, Path of Legends has the Titans, and Starfall Street has the Squad Leaders. No doubt after doing one of them the current team you have would have gotten a work out, so maybe swapping them out (whether the whole team or just a few member is up to you) would both maintain the challenge balance as well as letting you use more Pokemon you normally would have.
I would actually suggest not having solid teams, but rather a pool of 12-18 Pokemon that you decide you'd want to use and, between boss battles, swap out your current team for the ones with the lower levels (or has a nice balance of Types and roles). And that way, if you find a new Pokemon you want to train, it should be much easier to just replace it with one of the pool Pokemon you may no longer be interested in than having to reconfigure each team to find a place for the new Pokemon on one of them.
Apparently the two routes you don’t choose get integrated into the postgame story which I REALLY HOPE gets confirmed before the release date because at this point I have no clue what route I’ll pick lol.
No. NO. No no no no NO! Are you KIDDING ME?! PLEASE let this not be the case. That would completely ruin the excitement of playing the story, not knowing what storyline segment you'll run into and then choosing to do it or not.
Okay, thinking about it, maybe this is a misunderstanding. Because, think about it, if all stories are presented as equal, that means you can only finish one of them in the "main game". You can probably do bits of each one throughout the game, but when it comes to ending the main story which leads to the end game, you need to pick which of the three stories you want as the framing device. That would very much be in align with the open world concept, an interesting one at that. Like the ending the main game will likely involve the Legendaries and possibly an overarching story running in the background (Legendaries don't just let you use them as your bike without needing you to do something for them), but depending on what story you choose to end determines the characters involved. Victory Road will have Nemona, Geeta, and maybe the Elite Four (and Gym Leaders); Path of Legends will have Arven, the Professors, and maybe other students & faculty from the Academy; Starfall Street will have Penny and the members of Team Star. Then, afterwards in the postgame, you can finish up the other two stories, they'll just have a more "generic" ending instead of being part of the main story climax.
As the coding purposes, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had equipment that had effects dependent on driver and blade gender, though XC3 currently has no similar item. Considering the efforts made to keep Juniper as nonbinary as possible, down to their English VA being nonbinary too, I think it would be weirder if Juniper was binary.
Interesting, especially since there is a character in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 which also has a nonbinary trait: Roc. In the code "his" gender is defined as 4. All other Blades have either 1 (male), 2 (female), or 3 (animal). And yes, this is important, as there are Merc Missions which involve either having an entire party of guys, gals, or animals, and Roc can't be assigned to any of them (nor can he be used to fulfill a requisite of those or being "humanoid"). Roc is referred to as a guy in the game's dialogue, but according to the game's code he's nonbinary not only in gender but also species!
Speaking of the Black Augurite example, though, I'm 100% expecting there to be a new mon that uses this method to evolve - maybe not directly by only using this method but something like "Defeat X amount of Fidough" or "get this one item that is only obtainable as a rare drop from X mon so you have to defeat a lot of them" which would be made quicker by this method or something like that.
I wonder how the Pokémon chose their target, if at all. Would a Fuecoco prioritize going after the Scatterbug in the distance or would it prefer to face a Geodude head on? Would it matter what moves your mon has? And the dreaded question, can your mon go after and KO shinies on its own??
Lastly, we've sen in a few shots that you can have your whole party out at once from previous screenshots, so I wonder if that extends to this? I'd assume not because the site specifically says you can have one pokémon out adventuring, but who knows.
Let's Go/Auto Battles: Just to give my quick thoughts on the Let's Go feature and Auto Battles: We'll see how it works out. From what it sounds like it's not going to be anything that amazing. If you're watching your Pokemon do it's own thing, it'll essentially be the game playing itself while you get some Items and the walking Pokemon gets experience from battling (or eventually knocked out). If you're off doing you're own thing, occasionally you'll probably just be alerted "off screen" your Pokemon "found" some items and "fought a Pokemon" gaining some experience. "Um, what's with the quotes"? Because I find it hard to believe that GF will have the entire overworld active where the Pokemon is while the player isn't there. That's just a waste of processing power. What I more likely imagine is happening is that the game is keeping track of your Pokemon and what's currently around it via map markers and generating items and Wild Pokemon in data only. Now if you go looking for your Pokemon it'll of course load it in and with whatever item/Pokemon it's engaged with, but it wasn't actively on the map (hence it needing to be loaded in when the player gets in range). Though I'm curious how they would work Leveling-up. I don't think they'll have it learn a new Move or Evolve on its own, but will you be immediately alerted (and get to choose) when that happens or when it comes back to you you're told it leveled-up and then given the new move/evolution prompts?
Legends: Arceus Evolution Methods: I don't think we'll be seeing the "defeat x amount of Pokemon" or "use this move x amount of times". That was pretty much solely done for the Dex Tasks, for the core series those will just be made to "Level up the Pokemon knowing that move". But I'm sure there will be new evo methods (just please nothing like Galarian Runerigus), new items are the easiest ones to do (even though they create bag bloat).
Choosing Target: Most likely "proximity", though hopefully they do have the Pokemon "smart" enough not to get into a battle where it has the Type disadvantage or against a higher level. Moves will matter, it'll likely play out a battle sim where your Pokemon and the wild one pick random moves (cause you're not there to tell it use the SE & not the NFE, though maybe depending on Level or Friendship they'll up its AI to consider that) until one knocks out the other. As for Shinies, in theory. I'd imagine the Pokemon generated will also have its Personality Value determined and, if they don't Shiny Lock any Pokemon your Pokemon can encounter, they can be Shiny. If your Pokemon encounters a Shiny, but you're not there to see it, does that shiny Pokemon truly exist?
Party Picture: That's looking like a photo mode thing. Pick a spot, take out your Rotom Phone, and there will likely be an app for "Picture Mode" which lets you take a group photo.
Maybe Let's Go will give a "Sneak Mode" option: Your Pokemon doesn't get into fights and instead looks for items (increases items found, but you're more likely to find a common item than a rare one).
I think that it is still possible there will be Exclusive Tera stuff like Gigantamax or signature Z-moves, but it’s pretty hard to know how it would work.
Like Exclusive Z moves were usually stronger and some would have additional effects, while G-Max moves would be like their Max counter part but with a whole new effect that (usually) was better.
Something that could potentially happen is that Tera Blast is the new Hidden Power, and some Pokemon get their versions of Judgement soft of speak.
Where as Tera Blast only activates when Terastallized, is given to several Pokemon, and has a moderate BP, “Tera Judgement” is an improved version of this move given to only a few Pokemon. Changing type without Terastallizing and having a much higher BP.
I was imagining it working like a combination of Mega Evo & Gigantamax. Basically:
Unique Form (underneath a crystal filter) with a unique crown.
Dual-type & gets Super STAB on both Types. No Stat or Ability changes.
Moves on one of their Type change into a special T-Move. Meanwhile Terra Blast uses the other Type for damage calculation (no Dual-type Move as it doesn't really work with all Types).
Yeah, I was about to even comment "You remember there was two Professor Juniper's right, and the Japanese version didn't give them first names like the English version did", but then I saw the twitter post about Xenoblade 3 characters, lol.
I'm a firm believer in Hanlon's razor, so I think the reason why hasn't been much diversity in mainstream Pokémon until relatively recently is because it didn't cross anyone's mind.
Also because, up until Gen V, all the Pokemon games were based in Japan. The mass population of Japanese are fair skin, so to GF they didn't even really think about darker skin characters unless they wanted to make someone notably different like a member of the Pokemon League.
When they decided to base Gen V's Unova on New York, a city famously known for being a culture mixing pot (not to mention based in the US which half the population are minority, plenty being dark-skinned), they realized to represent that they needed to add in more diverse characters. And from then on that's been pretty much the norm.
Nah, it's to unlock the code of an ancient hidden nuclear weapon whose activation requirements were made super obscure by design.
The Herba Mystica is Starf Berry 2: Electric Boogaloo. Mark my words.
Sprigatito evolution Grass/Psychic Iberian Lynx (lynx r know 2 have psychic powers), Sig move about Kneading
(...)
Cyclizar does the Cosmog thing
Legend Typings are Dragon/Fighting and Dragon/Electric
(...)
These just my predictions not leaks
If Sprigatito's evo not standing you're (unfortunately) wrong. It'll obviously evolve into a Puss in Boots Pokemon. "Puss In Boots is an Italian fairytale". Yes but the most well known version of the character is from the Shrek movies where he is voiced by Antonio Banderas, who is Spanish (actually, the Shrek version of Puss is more Zorro than the actual fairytale character, and yes that is because Banderas was hired to voice the character before they even started animating him so based their version of Puss directly on Banderas portrayal of Zorro; so in other words Sprigatito will involve into a Zorro Pokemon).
Jokes aside, I think Cyclizar will have more of a Carbink-Diancie relation with the Legendaries; "Related" but Cyclizar can't become them (through normal gameplay means).
Kind of hoping they pull a surprise and don't make the Legendaries both part Dragon-type. Like I think Fighting/Ground and Psychic/Steel would work nicely.
Well its clear Pokémon doesn’t care about politics, about the whole Scottish Independence and giving Gibraltar to Paldea, so it won’t hurt to add mesoamericano culture bits to Paldea, especially significant parts of mesoamericano culture. Also Fuecoco is def Fire/Ghost and evolves into a Ghost Pepper legless lizard/croc thing(legless lizards are called a variety of snakish names and that would tie in2 the quetzalcoatl theory cuz well quetzalcoatls are legless) also the zodiac theory is just loose it doesn’t have to be that close
While I'm not as critical as R_N (though does have a point that there's much more prettier 3D games out there and on the Switch: Xenoblade, Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest, Zelda, and even Mario and Kirby), I do also want to point out perspective in this thought.
To US, people who have likely started playing Pokemon when they were sprite games (be it on the GB or GBA), seeing the newer Pokemon games in 3D is exciting to see; especially when they do the remakes (usually...). But for kids who started playing the games with Gen VI or after, I'm curious if the games being in 3D even registers as something novel. Cause most of the games they play likely are in 3D, the only "sprites" they ever see is the menu sprites which too have evolved that they're more detailed than any sprites older players had when they played the older games. If anything, the kids will get a novel experience learning, seeing, and possibly playing the older sprite-based gens; a glimpse into the past.
As of right now, if a kid wants to play through all the regions, technically the only regions he would have to play a sprite-based game for is Johto and Unova. If they were to make a Let's Go 2 it would likely be in Johto and the next gen to have remakes is Unova (not to mention any side projects they may do which would put a region in 3D like a Legends game). And even then the overworld is mostly in 3D, only the trainers and Pokemon are sprites (in appearance anyway, I think they are "models" in how they're programmed just playing sprite animations when moving).
It's still a spectacle for sure, but I think it's more for the older players than the newer. To new players, Pokemon GO is probably the more mindblowing thing as its Pokemon in the "real world".
While representation is important so I can get a player seeing a dark-skinned character and wanting to relate with them... I feel in Pokemon putting a nationality to them is a tricky subject.
My philosophy, unless stated otherwise, the character is from the region they were introduced in. I would have no issue if Geeta was from an India-based region, sounds interesting and hope a future game would take place there (it better have a Copperajah Pokeride), but unless its said so in-game I just assume Geeta is a dark-skinned Paldean. Like in SwSh we have a batch of dark-skinned characters of various shades (Hop, Leon, Rose, Bea, Nessa, Raihan, etc.) but all of them are just as Galarian as the light-skinned characters.
If you're Indian and see a bit of yourself in Geeta because her skin color is close to yours', great! She sounds to be a good character you'd want to be compared to. But just note that it is likely only skin deep, even if she isn't from Paldea she very much has taken in the Paldean culture as her own and thus represents it; much like Kabu who is originally from Hoenn but had you not been told that I would assume he was Galarian (yes, he was made to look more Asian, but so was Mustard and it sounds like he's naturally Galarian; and Bea practices martial arts which has an Asian origin but she too is naturally Galarian).
Others have already stated why its likely not gonna work out, but if you want to raise multiple teams that shouldn't prevent you from doing it. Like, I can see the potential of becoming overleveled and/or your party at certain points just getting extra experience they don't need. So you could just swap around you team after defeating a "boss". Each story has them: Victory Road has the Gym Leaders, Path of Legends has the Titans, and Starfall Street has the Squad Leaders. No doubt after doing one of them the current team you have would have gotten a work out, so maybe swapping them out (whether the whole team or just a few member is up to you) would both maintain the challenge balance as well as letting you use more Pokemon you normally would have.
I would actually suggest not having solid teams, but rather a pool of 12-18 Pokemon that you decide you'd want to use and, between boss battles, swap out your current team for the ones with the lower levels (or has a nice balance of Types and roles). And that way, if you find a new Pokemon you want to train, it should be much easier to just replace it with one of the pool Pokemon you may no longer be interested in than having to reconfigure each team to find a place for the new Pokemon on one of them.
WHAT?!
No. NO. No no no no NO! Are you KIDDING ME?! PLEASE let this not be the case. That would completely ruin the excitement of playing the story, not knowing what storyline segment you'll run into and then choosing to do it or not.
Okay, thinking about it, maybe this is a misunderstanding. Because, think about it, if all stories are presented as equal, that means you can only finish one of them in the "main game". You can probably do bits of each one throughout the game, but when it comes to ending the main story which leads to the end game, you need to pick which of the three stories you want as the framing device. That would very much be in align with the open world concept, an interesting one at that. Like the ending the main game will likely involve the Legendaries and possibly an overarching story running in the background (Legendaries don't just let you use them as your bike without needing you to do something for them), but depending on what story you choose to end determines the characters involved. Victory Road will have Nemona, Geeta, and maybe the Elite Four (and Gym Leaders); Path of Legends will have Arven, the Professors, and maybe other students & faculty from the Academy; Starfall Street will have Penny and the members of Team Star. Then, afterwards in the postgame, you can finish up the other two stories, they'll just have a more "generic" ending instead of being part of the main story climax.
Interesting, especially since there is a character in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 which also has a nonbinary trait: Roc. In the code "his" gender is defined as 4. All other Blades have either 1 (male), 2 (female), or 3 (animal). And yes, this is important, as there are Merc Missions which involve either having an entire party of guys, gals, or animals, and Roc can't be assigned to any of them (nor can he be used to fulfill a requisite of those or being "humanoid"). Roc is referred to as a guy in the game's dialogue, but according to the game's code he's nonbinary not only in gender but also species!
Let's Go/Auto Battles: Just to give my quick thoughts on the Let's Go feature and Auto Battles: We'll see how it works out. From what it sounds like it's not going to be anything that amazing. If you're watching your Pokemon do it's own thing, it'll essentially be the game playing itself while you get some Items and the walking Pokemon gets experience from battling (or eventually knocked out). If you're off doing you're own thing, occasionally you'll probably just be alerted "off screen" your Pokemon "found" some items and "fought a Pokemon" gaining some experience. "Um, what's with the quotes"? Because I find it hard to believe that GF will have the entire overworld active where the Pokemon is while the player isn't there. That's just a waste of processing power. What I more likely imagine is happening is that the game is keeping track of your Pokemon and what's currently around it via map markers and generating items and Wild Pokemon in data only. Now if you go looking for your Pokemon it'll of course load it in and with whatever item/Pokemon it's engaged with, but it wasn't actively on the map (hence it needing to be loaded in when the player gets in range). Though I'm curious how they would work Leveling-up. I don't think they'll have it learn a new Move or Evolve on its own, but will you be immediately alerted (and get to choose) when that happens or when it comes back to you you're told it leveled-up and then given the new move/evolution prompts?
Legends: Arceus Evolution Methods: I don't think we'll be seeing the "defeat x amount of Pokemon" or "use this move x amount of times". That was pretty much solely done for the Dex Tasks, for the core series those will just be made to "Level up the Pokemon knowing that move". But I'm sure there will be new evo methods (just please nothing like Galarian Runerigus), new items are the easiest ones to do (even though they create bag bloat).
Choosing Target: Most likely "proximity", though hopefully they do have the Pokemon "smart" enough not to get into a battle where it has the Type disadvantage or against a higher level. Moves will matter, it'll likely play out a battle sim where your Pokemon and the wild one pick random moves (cause you're not there to tell it use the SE & not the NFE, though maybe depending on Level or Friendship they'll up its AI to consider that) until one knocks out the other. As for Shinies, in theory. I'd imagine the Pokemon generated will also have its Personality Value determined and, if they don't Shiny Lock any Pokemon your Pokemon can encounter, they can be Shiny. If your Pokemon encounters a Shiny, but you're not there to see it, does that shiny Pokemon truly exist?
Party Picture: That's looking like a photo mode thing. Pick a spot, take out your Rotom Phone, and there will likely be an app for "Picture Mode" which lets you take a group photo.
Maybe Let's Go will give a "Sneak Mode" option: Your Pokemon doesn't get into fights and instead looks for items (increases items found, but you're more likely to find a common item than a rare one).
I was imagining it working like a combination of Mega Evo & Gigantamax. Basically:
Unique Form (underneath a crystal filter) with a unique crown.
Dual-type & gets Super STAB on both Types. No Stat or Ability changes.
Moves on one of their Type change into a special T-Move. Meanwhile Terra Blast uses the other Type for damage calculation (no Dual-type Move as it doesn't really work with all Types).
Yeah, I was about to even comment "You remember there was two Professor Juniper's right, and the Japanese version didn't give them first names like the English version did", but then I saw the twitter post about Xenoblade 3 characters, lol.
Also because, up until Gen V, all the Pokemon games were based in Japan. The mass population of Japanese are fair skin, so to GF they didn't even really think about darker skin characters unless they wanted to make someone notably different like a member of the Pokemon League.
When they decided to base Gen V's Unova on New York, a city famously known for being a culture mixing pot (not to mention based in the US which half the population are minority, plenty being dark-skinned), they realized to represent that they needed to add in more diverse characters. And from then on that's been pretty much the norm.
If Sprigatito's evo not standing you're (unfortunately) wrong. It'll obviously evolve into a Puss in Boots Pokemon. "Puss In Boots is an Italian fairytale". Yes but the most well known version of the character is from the Shrek movies where he is voiced by Antonio Banderas, who is Spanish (actually, the Shrek version of Puss is more Zorro than the actual fairytale character, and yes that is because Banderas was hired to voice the character before they even started animating him so based their version of Puss directly on Banderas portrayal of Zorro; so in other words Sprigatito will involve into a Zorro Pokemon).
Jokes aside, I think Cyclizar will have more of a Carbink-Diancie relation with the Legendaries; "Related" but Cyclizar can't become them (through normal gameplay means).
Kind of hoping they pull a surprise and don't make the Legendaries both part Dragon-type. Like I think Fighting/Ground and Psychic/Steel would work nicely.
While I'm not as critical as R_N (though does have a point that there's much more prettier 3D games out there and on the Switch: Xenoblade, Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest, Zelda, and even Mario and Kirby), I do also want to point out perspective in this thought.
To US, people who have likely started playing Pokemon when they were sprite games (be it on the GB or GBA), seeing the newer Pokemon games in 3D is exciting to see; especially when they do the remakes (usually...). But for kids who started playing the games with Gen VI or after, I'm curious if the games being in 3D even registers as something novel. Cause most of the games they play likely are in 3D, the only "sprites" they ever see is the menu sprites which too have evolved that they're more detailed than any sprites older players had when they played the older games. If anything, the kids will get a novel experience learning, seeing, and possibly playing the older sprite-based gens; a glimpse into the past.
As of right now, if a kid wants to play through all the regions, technically the only regions he would have to play a sprite-based game for is Johto and Unova. If they were to make a Let's Go 2 it would likely be in Johto and the next gen to have remakes is Unova (not to mention any side projects they may do which would put a region in 3D like a Legends game). And even then the overworld is mostly in 3D, only the trainers and Pokemon are sprites (in appearance anyway, I think they are "models" in how they're programmed just playing sprite animations when moving).
It's still a spectacle for sure, but I think it's more for the older players than the newer. To new players, Pokemon GO is probably the more mindblowing thing as its Pokemon in the "real world".
While representation is important so I can get a player seeing a dark-skinned character and wanting to relate with them... I feel in Pokemon putting a nationality to them is a tricky subject.
My philosophy, unless stated otherwise, the character is from the region they were introduced in. I would have no issue if Geeta was from an India-based region, sounds interesting and hope a future game would take place there (it better have a Copperajah Pokeride), but unless its said so in-game I just assume Geeta is a dark-skinned Paldean. Like in SwSh we have a batch of dark-skinned characters of various shades (Hop, Leon, Rose, Bea, Nessa, Raihan, etc.) but all of them are just as Galarian as the light-skinned characters.
If you're Indian and see a bit of yourself in Geeta because her skin color is close to yours', great! She sounds to be a good character you'd want to be compared to. But just note that it is likely only skin deep, even if she isn't from Paldea she very much has taken in the Paldean culture as her own and thus represents it; much like Kabu who is originally from Hoenn but had you not been told that I would assume he was Galarian (yes, he was made to look more Asian, but so was Mustard and it sounds like he's naturally Galarian; and Bea practices martial arts which has an Asian origin but she too is naturally Galarian).
Others have already stated why its likely not gonna work out, but if you want to raise multiple teams that shouldn't prevent you from doing it. Like, I can see the potential of becoming overleveled and/or your party at certain points just getting extra experience they don't need. So you could just swap around you team after defeating a "boss". Each story has them: Victory Road has the Gym Leaders, Path of Legends has the Titans, and Starfall Street has the Squad Leaders. No doubt after doing one of them the current team you have would have gotten a work out, so maybe swapping them out (whether the whole team or just a few member is up to you) would both maintain the challenge balance as well as letting you use more Pokemon you normally would have.
I would actually suggest not having solid teams, but rather a pool of 12-18 Pokemon that you decide you'd want to use and, between boss battles, swap out your current team for the ones with the lower levels (or has a nice balance of Types and roles). And that way, if you find a new Pokemon you want to train, it should be much easier to just replace it with one of the pool Pokemon you may no longer be interested in than having to reconfigure each team to find a place for the new Pokemon on one of them.
WHAT?!
No. NO. No no no no NO! Are you KIDDING ME?! PLEASE let this not be the case. That would completely ruin the excitement of playing the story, not knowing what storyline segment you'll run into and then choosing to do it or not.
Okay, thinking about it, maybe this is a misunderstanding. Because, think about it, if all stories are presented as equal, that means you can only finish one of them in the "main game". You can probably do bits of each one throughout the game, but when it comes to ending the main story which leads to the end game, you need to pick which of the three stories you want as the framing device. That would very much be in align with the open world concept, an interesting one at that. Like the ending the main game will likely involve the Legendaries and possibly an overarching story running in the background (Legendaries don't just let you use them as your bike without needing you to do something for them), but depending on what story you choose to end determines the characters involved. Victory Road will have Nemona, Geeta, and maybe the Elite Four (and Gym Leaders); Path of Legends will have Arven, the Professors, and maybe other students & faculty from the Academy; Starfall Street will have Penny and the members of Team Star. Then, afterwards in the postgame, you can finish up the other two stories, they'll just have a more "generic" ending instead of being part of the main story climax.
Interesting, especially since there is a character in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 which also has a nonbinary trait: Roc. In the code "his" gender is defined as 4. All other Blades have either 1 (male), 2 (female), or 3 (animal). And yes, this is important, as there are Merc Missions which involve either having an entire party of guys, gals, or animals, and Roc can't be assigned to any of them (nor can he be used to fulfill a requisite of those or being "humanoid"). Roc is referred to as a guy in the game's dialogue, but according to the game's code he's nonbinary not only in gender but also species!
Let's Go/Auto Battles: Just to give my quick thoughts on the Let's Go feature and Auto Battles: We'll see how it works out. From what it sounds like it's not going to be anything that amazing. If you're watching your Pokemon do it's own thing, it'll essentially be the game playing itself while you get some Items and the walking Pokemon gets experience from battling (or eventually knocked out). If you're off doing you're own thing, occasionally you'll probably just be alerted "off screen" your Pokemon "found" some items and "fought a Pokemon" gaining some experience. "Um, what's with the quotes"? Because I find it hard to believe that GF will have the entire overworld active where the Pokemon is while the player isn't there. That's just a waste of processing power. What I more likely imagine is happening is that the game is keeping track of your Pokemon and what's currently around it via map markers and generating items and Wild Pokemon in data only. Now if you go looking for your Pokemon it'll of course load it in and with whatever item/Pokemon it's engaged with, but it wasn't actively on the map (hence it needing to be loaded in when the player gets in range). Though I'm curious how they would work Leveling-up. I don't think they'll have it learn a new Move or Evolve on its own, but will you be immediately alerted (and get to choose) when that happens or when it comes back to you you're told it leveled-up and then given the new move/evolution prompts?
Legends: Arceus Evolution Methods: I don't think we'll be seeing the "defeat x amount of Pokemon" or "use this move x amount of times". That was pretty much solely done for the Dex Tasks, for the core series those will just be made to "Level up the Pokemon knowing that move". But I'm sure there will be new evo methods (just please nothing like Galarian Runerigus), new items are the easiest ones to do (even though they create bag bloat).
Choosing Target: Most likely "proximity", though hopefully they do have the Pokemon "smart" enough not to get into a battle where it has the Type disadvantage or against a higher level. Moves will matter, it'll likely play out a battle sim where your Pokemon and the wild one pick random moves (cause you're not there to tell it use the SE & not the NFE, though maybe depending on Level or Friendship they'll up its AI to consider that) until one knocks out the other. As for Shinies, in theory. I'd imagine the Pokemon generated will also have its Personality Value determined and, if they don't Shiny Lock any Pokemon your Pokemon can encounter, they can be Shiny. If your Pokemon encounters a Shiny, but you're not there to see it, does that shiny Pokemon truly exist?
Party Picture: That's looking like a photo mode thing. Pick a spot, take out your Rotom Phone, and there will likely be an app for "Picture Mode" which lets you take a group photo.
Maybe Let's Go will give a "Sneak Mode" option: Your Pokemon doesn't get into fights and instead looks for items (increases items found, but you're more likely to find a common item than a rare one).
I was imagining it working like a combination of Mega Evo & Gigantamax. Basically:
Unique Form (underneath a crystal filter) with a unique crown.
Dual-type & gets Super STAB on both Types. No Stat or Ability changes.
Moves on one of their Type change into a special T-Move. Meanwhile Terra Blast uses the other Type for damage calculation (no Dual-type Move as it doesn't really work with all Types).
Yeah, I was about to even comment "You remember there was two Professor Juniper's right, and the Japanese version didn't give them first names like the English version did", but then I saw the twitter post about Xenoblade 3 characters, lol.
Also because, up until Gen V, all the Pokemon games were based in Japan. The mass population of Japanese are fair skin, so to GF they didn't even really think about darker skin characters unless they wanted to make someone notably different like a member of the Pokemon League.
When they decided to base Gen V's Unova on New York, a city famously known for being a culture mixing pot (not to mention based in the US which half the population are minority, plenty being dark-skinned), they realized to represent that they needed to add in more diverse characters. And from then on that's been pretty much the norm.
If Sprigatito's evo not standing you're (unfortunately) wrong. It'll obviously evolve into a Puss in Boots Pokemon. "Puss In Boots is an Italian fairytale". Yes but the most well known version of the character is from the Shrek movies where he is voiced by Antonio Banderas, who is Spanish (actually, the Shrek version of Puss is more Zorro than the actual fairytale character, and yes that is because Banderas was hired to voice the character before they even started animating him so based their version of Puss directly on Banderas portrayal of Zorro; so in other words Sprigatito will involve into a Zorro Pokemon).
Jokes aside, I think Cyclizar will have more of a Carbink-Diancie relation with the Legendaries; "Related" but Cyclizar can't become them (through normal gameplay means).
Kind of hoping they pull a surprise and don't make the Legendaries both part Dragon-type. Like I think Fighting/Ground and Psychic/Steel would work nicely.
Legends: Arceus Evolution Methods: I don't think we'll be seeing the "defeat x amount of Pokemon" or "use this move x amount of times". That was pretty much solely done for the Dex Tasks, for the core series those will just be made to "Level up the Pokemon knowing that move". But I'm sure there will be new evo methods (just please nothing like Galarian Runerigus), new items are the easiest ones to do (even though they create bag bloat).
Kinda missed my point there, I'm not necessarily saying that using the auto battle itself will be an evo method nor that the PLA methods will be here. Just saying that there may be a new evo method that in one way or another would require constantly battling (The example i used was exactly that graveler dropped a new item to evolve scyther and that battling graveler automatically en masse would not be an evo method but would speed up the process) that auto battles would simply make easier
The Fire Knights are a split evolution ala Flapple/Appletun who evolve from defeating 10 Bronzor or Sinistea and getting a new item. Not sure if item is the same and the evolutions are version exclusive coded or if it's just like the Tart/Sweet Apple and the item availability is exclusive.
