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Little things you like about Pokémon

Darkrai, Shaymin, Arceus and even Manaphy and Phione being battleable in Legends: Arceus. I really do prefer being able to actually battle and catch all the Pokemon I can, and I quite enjoy the lore that usually accompanies this in the case of Mythical Pokemon. At least Manaphy’s story makes sense as to why it wasn’t previously available in any sort of fight.

But yeah I miss Mythicals being given actual in game events, like Celebi in Gen 2, Darkrai and Shaymin in Gen 4, Victini in Gen 5. Much more exciting than just a Mystery Gift with a “hey you received (blank)”. Don’t get me wrong I love mystery gifts and the extra special Pokemon I’ve gotten but I feel these Mythicals deserve a little more ingame love and a non-anime exclusive story behind them.
 
I really like how in RGBY, all the Elite Four's rooms have their own music.
  • Lorelai's is the standard gym theme, because well the Elite Four are basically the next step up from Gym Leaders so that makes sense
  • Bruno's is the Team Rocket hideout music which is actually quite unsettling, makes him feel a little dangerous and unpredictable
  • Agatha's is the Pokemon Tower music which totally fits for an old lady into her Ghost-types
  • Lance's returns to the main Pokemon League theme, which impresses upon you that you're at the end of the quartet now and things are truly serious
Pity this didn't become a thing in future titles, I like when they make the effort to give individual members of a group separate tunes like with B2W2's gyms.
 
green_typhlosion said:
I really like how in RGBY, all the Elite Four's rooms have their own music.
  • Lorelai's is the standard gym theme, because well the Elite Four are basically the next step up from Gym Leaders so that makes sense
  • Bruno's is the Team Rocket hideout music which is actually quite unsettling, makes him feel a little dangerous and unpredictable
  • Agatha's is the Pokemon Tower music which totally fits for an old lady into her Ghost-types
  • Lance's returns to the main Pokemon League theme, which impresses upon you that you're at the end of the quartet now and things are truly serious
Pity this didn't become a thing in future titles, I like when they make the effort to give individual members of a group separate tunes like with B2W2's gyms.
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Something I remembered after seeing a post in the Annoy thread about Emerald rematches: Norman's rosters in Emerald are super cool and he ends up on a super fun (if easily countered) Skill Swap strategy. In particular I like how he only uses pure Normal-type Pokemon. It feels like a fitting reflection of his character and it's just a fun little quirk.

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My favourite part of his final rematch team is that he has a Level 58 Spinda the amazing meme potential of having Spinda Skill Swap Own Tempo onto Slaking both to take away Truant and make it immune to Teeter Dance. Of course this likely requires Spinda to survive three turns minimum, but it'd be amazing if he could pull it off.

The rematches also include some truly wild movesets though, like Flannery's no-STAB Houdoom:

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Cobalt Empoleon said:
Something I remembered after seeing a post in the Annoy thread about Emerald rematches: Norman's rosters in Emerald are super cool and he ends up on a super fun (if easily countered) Skill Swap strategy. In particular I like how he only uses pure Normal-type Pokemon. It feels like a fitting reflection of his character and it's just a fun little quirk.

View attachment 454624
My favourite part of his final rematch team is that he has a Level 58 Spinda the amazing meme potential of having Spinda Skill Swap Own Tempo onto Slaking both to take away Truant and make it immune to Teeter Dance. Of course this likely requires Spinda to survive three turns minimum, but it'd be amazing if he could pull it off.

The rematches also include some truly wild movesets though, like Flannery's no-STAB Houdoom:

View attachment 454623
Click to expand...

Juan's double-Chesto-rest, double-Perish Song, triple-evasion hax, triple-OHKO move team is also exceptionally fun to fight.

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green_typhlosion said:
Juan's double-Chesto-rest, double-Perish Song, triple-evasion hax, triple-OHKO move team is also exceptionally fun to fight.

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I was gonna say 'if they'd just let him have Surf for the rematches it'd be one of my favourite Gym rematch teams ever' but maybe someone at GF was aware that Water Pulse's confuse chance feels more like 50% when it's used against you and elected to keep it for the evil synergy. It's interesting too that, since Emerald is the only gen with Leader rematches but no buffed E4, half the Gym Leaders outlevel Wallace in their final rematches and Sidney takes his rightful place as weakest boss battle in Hoenn.
 
Cobalt Empoleon said:
that, since Emerald is the only gen with Leader rematches but no buffed E4,
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Wait what? Oh damn, you're right, never clocked that.

Maybe that's because there's so few Pokemon left to give them without just repeating what the Gym Leaders use. Just tried to think of what you'd add to their teams if you were making rematch rosters: Sidney does alright with Houndoom and Tyranitar, but Glacia basically just has to use all the same things Lorelai did while Phoebe and Drake barely have enough to fill a team of 6. I wouldn't even bother changing Wallace's team, it's pretty perfect as is in terms of type variety and team roles.
 
green_typhlosion said:
Wait what? Oh damn, you're right, never clocked that.

Maybe that's because there's so few Pokemon left to give them without just repeating what the Gym Leaders use. Just tried to think of what you'd add to their teams if you were making rematch rosters: Sidney does alright with Houndoom and Tyranitar, but Glacia basically just has to use all the same things Lorelai did while Phoebe and Drake barely have enough to fill a team of 6. I wouldn't even bother changing Wallace's team, it's pretty perfect as is in terms of type variety and team roles.
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Oh yeah I don't think it would've worked super well to try and give their teams a proper makeover, given the options available. Even giving them the Platinum treatment where everything is just X levels higher would create some issues, especially with Glacia and her Sealeo. It'd be weird if they stayed unevolved at an even higher level, but it'd also be weird for her to end up with three Walrein lol.
R_N said:
It feels pretty gamefreak decision to have FRLG have E4 rematches (the first of its kind!) but no Leader rematches while Emerald had Leader rematches (the first of its kind!) but no E4 rematches
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FRLG had a couple of Gym Leader rematch misdirects imo. The Vs Seeker is a clear advancement on RS's Trainer's Eyes system... but then they made it so you can't use it indoors. The Fame Checker logs info on all major characters and you can get extra notes for the Gym Leaders from Pokemon Journals after you enter the Hall of Fame and when you complete an entry you get a special message from that character... but then nothing else happens. Usually I'm ok with something just being a little Easter egg and nothing more, but I really really like rematches haha
 
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Looking them over now, I'm really impressed at how varied Lucas's and Dawn's teams in BDSP are. I would have expected them to have identical teams, but they super don't.

In his first battle, Lucas uses Mothim, Gallade, Clefable, Tangrowth, Magmortar, and Milotic, with one of the latter three swapped out for a starter. Meanwhile, Dawn uses Wormadam, Froslass, Clefable, Tangrowth, Magmortar, and Milotic. Once again, one of the latter three are swapped out for a starter, and additionally Wormadam's cloak depends on your starter (though there doesn't seem to be a pattern determining which cloak goes with which starter). Not only are the parallels between Mothim/Wormadam and Gallade/Froslass cool, but even among the Pokemon they share, only Clefable and Magmortar use the same set.

Their teams get wild in their second battles, with every single Pokemon depending on your starter. These rosters are so complex that I'm gonna need to use pictures to make it barely readable.

Dawn has a Flying-type :togekiss::crobat::honchkrow:, a Normal-type :Lopunny::Lickilicky::Ambipom:, a sort-of wild card :Mamoswine::Mr-Mime::Froslass: (so close to just being Ice-types; was Galarian Mr. Mime originally supposed to be in this game?), and finally makes a FWG core between a random mon :Bellossom::Arcanine::Gorebyss:, a past starter :typhlosion::blastoise::sceptile:, and a Sinnoh starter :empoleon::torterra::infernape:.

And then Lucas... oh my god. He also has a Normal-type :tauros::dunsparce::porygon-z:, a wild card :gliscor::dusknoir::absol:, and a Sinnoh starter :empoleon::torterra::infernape:, and then fills the rest of his team with a fossil :cradily::rampardos::kabutops::, an Eeveelution :glaceon::flareon::espeon:, and a Rotom form :rotom-heat::rotom-wash::rotom-mow:. But what blows my mind is how Lucas incorporates a FWG core into his team. Two of the pieces are always the starter and the Rotom, and usually the last piece is the fossil, but because there's no Fire-type fossil, Flareon takes the Fire slot on that particular team. Starter-dependent teams are rare, and I can't think of any other that plays around with so many rotating slots, not to mention overlapping and intersecting different trios (fossils, eeveelutions, fwg).

My only annoyance is that none of them ever use Alakazam. They kept the Clefable from their multi-battle team, but not the Alakazam. Actually no, I do have one other annoyance: Dawn sometimes reusing the Froslass. Every other mon besides the starter is always different between the first and second battles.
 
I'm thinking of breeding a Cubone in Crystal atm and I'm suddenly struck by how much this Pokemon epitomises the jankiness of early Pokemon's movesets.

By level, Marowak's movepool is barren - it, like so many Pokemon in Gen I and II, only learns Normal moves and moves of its own type.


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But it's an entirely different story when it comes to TMs, tutor moves, and breeding. Suddenly its movepool explodes with diversity, and it's able to learn moves of up to ten other types:
  • Fire (Fire Punch, Flamethrower, Sunny Day)
  • Water (Water Gun, Bubblebeam)
  • Electric (Thunderpunch)
  • Ice (Blizzard, Icy Wind, Ice Beam)
  • Fighting (Dynamicpunch, Counter, Submission, Seismic Toss, Rock Smash)
  • Rock (Ancientpower, Rock Slide, Sandstorm)
  • Dark (Thief)
  • Steel (Iron Tail)
  • Poison (Toxic)
  • Psychic (Rest)

Gen I has so many Pokemon who only learn one or two moves of their own type naturally, like Scyther and Kabutops, but they generally have quite poor TM compatibility, too. Marowak shows how to do things the right way. I'm not sure there are many other Pokemon who are so richly rewarded by breeding or teaching them - I'm actually having an incredibly hard time deciding what to breed it with, since it gets so many great (but sadly incompatible) egg moves.

Cobalt Empoleon said:
Oh yeah I don't think it would've worked super well to try and give their teams a proper makeover, given the options available. Even giving them the Platinum treatment where everything is just X levels higher would create some issues, especially with Glacia and her Sealeo. It'd be weird if they stayed unevolved at an even higher level, but it'd also be weird for her to end up with three Walrein lol.

FRLG had a couple of Gym Leader rematch misdirects imo. The Vs Seeker is a clear advancement on RS's Trainer's Eyes system... but then they made it so you can't use it indoors. The Fame Checker logs info on all major characters and you can get extra notes for the Gym Leaders from Pokemon Journals after you enter the Hall of Fame and when you complete an entry you get a special message from that character... but then nothing else happens. Usually I'm ok with something just being a little Easter egg and nothing more, but I really really like rematches haha
Click to expand...

That said I absolutely do love the way FRLG did the E4 rematches. They could have just redone the teams completely with Pokemon from all three gens, but since no one in FRLG really uses Hoenn species they just sub in one or two Johto species, generally in place of one of their old picks that didn't fit their type theme. It feels so elegant and like they really wanted to keep the characters consistent; giving Lorelai a Glalie would feel so random.
  • Lorelai swaps out Slowbro for Piloswine (side note: it would have been so cool if the Slowbro doll in her house was her actual Slowbro faking the player out - total missed opportunity)
  • Bruno just evolves his two Onix - bit strange that he doesn't swap one for Hitmontop
  • Agatha evolves her Golbat and swaps one of her Gengar for Misdreavus
  • Lance drops one of his Dragonair for Kingdra, and evolves the other
 
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DrPumpkinz said:
Looking them over now, I'm really impressed at how varied Lucas's and Dawn's teams in BDSP are. I would have expected them to have identical teams, but they super don't.

In his first battle, Lucas uses Mothim, Gallade, Clefable, Tangrowth, Magmortar, and Milotic, with one of the latter three swapped out for a starter. Meanwhile, Dawn uses Wormadam, Froslass, Clefable, Tangrowth, Magmortar, and Milotic. Once again, one of the latter three are swapped out for a starter, and additionally Wormadam's cloak depends on your starter (though there doesn't seem to be a pattern determining which cloak goes with which starter). Not only are the parallels between Mothim/Wormadam and Gallade/Froslass cool, but even among the Pokemon they share, only Clefable and Magmortar use the same set.

Their teams get wild in their second battles, with every single Pokemon depending on your starter. These rosters are so complex that I'm gonna need to use pictures to make it barely readable.

Dawn has a Flying-type :togekiss::crobat::honchkrow:, a Normal-type :Lopunny::Lickilicky::Ambipom:, a sort-of wild card :Mamoswine::Mr-Mime::Froslass: (so close to just being Ice-types; was Galarian Mr. Mime originally supposed to be in this game?), and finally makes a FWG core between a random mon :Bellossom::Arcanine::Gorebyss:, a past starter :typhlosion::blastoise::sceptile:, and a Sinnoh starter :empoleon::torterra::infernape:.

And then Lucas... oh my god. He also has a Normal-type :tauros::dunsparce::porygon-z:, a wild card :gliscor::dusknoir::absol:, and a Sinnoh starter :empoleon::torterra::infernape:, and then fills the rest of his team with a fossil :cradily::rampardos::kabutops::, an Eeveelution :glaceon::flareon::espeon:, and a Rotom form :rotom-heat::rotom-wash::rotom-mow:. But what blows my mind is how Lucas incorporates a FWG core into his team. Two of the pieces are always the starter and the Rotom, and usually the last piece is the fossil, but because there's no Fire-type fossil, Flareon takes the Fire slot on that particular team. Starter-dependent teams are rare, and I can't think of any other that plays around with so many rotating slots, not to mention overlapping and intersecting different trios (fossils, eeveelutions, fwg).

My only annoyance is that none of them ever use Alakazam. They kept the Clefable from their multi-battle team, but not the Alakazam. Actually no, I do have one other annoyance: Dawn sometimes reusing the Froslass. Every other mon besides the starter is always different between the first and second battles.
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There's one more awesome detail you neglected to mention: If you look at Dawn's Empoleon squad selection, it's all the fully evolved forms of mons her anime counterpart uses save for one slot!
 
DrPumpkinz said:
snip
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Y know, if there's one thing BDSP really did right was actually make good, interesting teams for both major bosses, gyms and E4 (and even more monkaS in the rematches).
Shows that it's possible to create somewhat challenging teams without necessarly making the game impossibly grindy (for good or worse, friendship bonus and items still exist).

I kinda wish they would explore this more in the main series rather than a one-of in a outsourced remake :\
 
Chatting about the manga in the other thread and want to say something nice about it: the aspect of it I dig the most is the fact that each protagonist has their own unique special skill or capability. It's a really neat concept - it provides a legitimate reason as to why these kids are singled out and given Pokedexes, since they're actual prodigies.

Spoiler-tagging the list of protagonists because it's looooong.

  • Red's skill is battling. Nice and simple for our first protagonist; he's able to come up with and execute innovative and effective battle strategies quickly.
  • Green's skill is raising. Again, fairly simple: he's able to quickly and effectively raise the Pokemon he catches to draw out their potential.
  • Blue's skill is evolving. She knows all about Pokemon evolutions and often reserves the moment of evolution for crucial moments when doing so would prove most useful.
  • Yellow's skill is healing - she's able to empathically connect with Pokemon and heal their wounds as well as increase their vitality.
  • Gold's skill is hatching - he can rapidly connect with baby Pokemon and unlock their potential.
  • Silver's skill is trading - he has a vast knowledge of trade mechanics, and has a special affinity for Pokemon received in trades.
  • Crystal's skill is catching - she's a capture specialist who over the course of the series captures hundreds of different types of Pokemon.
  • Ruby's skill is contests - he's highly skilled at contests and at developing the innate qualities of a Pokemon to make it appear more beautiful, smart, tough, etc.
  • Sapphire's skill is gym battles - she's a highly adaptive battler, and manages to conquer all of Hoenn's gyms in exactly 80 days.
  • Emerald's skill is calming - he's able to intuitively sense where a Pokemon is from, and use a special soil mixture to remind it of its birthplace to soothe it when it rampages.

Later protagonists have special skills as well, but they tend to be more abstract in nature: for instance, the DPP trio's innate qualities - empathy, willpower, and understanding - have more to do with their characters than their Pokemon skills, and Black's obsessive dreaming about becoming Unova's champion is considered his special quality despite not being a skill at all. Some of the later protagonists do have more defined skills, though - Moon's specialty is mixing poisons and antidotes, while Henry's is tool-fixing: he repairs and maintains the tools used by certain Pokemon, such as Sirfetch'd's leek or Oranguru's fan.

Were I to define my special Pokemon skill, it probably would be trading too. I've traded a lot in all the games (god knows how many times; probably in the thousands by now) and absolutely love forming a team composed of six Pokemon with different OTs. Even in Pokemon Go I'm a lucky trade fanatic.

What would your special skill be? And are there any areas of Pokemon expertise left that the manga hasn't yet touched upon for their protagonists?
 
green_typhlosion said:
Chatting about the manga in the other thread and want to say something nice about it: the aspect of it I dig the most is the fact that each protagonist has their own unique special skill or capability. It's a really neat concept - it provides a legitimate reason as to why these kids are singled out and given Pokedexes, since they're actual prodigies.

Spoiler-tagging the list of protagonists because it's looooong.

  • Red's skill is battling. Nice and simple for our first protagonist; he's able to come up with and execute innovative and effective battle strategies quickly.
  • Green's skill is raising. Again, fairly simple: he's able to quickly and effectively raise the Pokemon he catches to draw out their potential.
  • Blue's skill is evolving. She knows all about Pokemon evolutions and often reserves the moment of evolution for crucial moments when doing so would prove most useful.
  • Yellow's skill is healing - she's able to empathically connect with Pokemon and heal their wounds as well as increase their vitality.
  • Gold's skill is hatching - he can rapidly connect with baby Pokemon and unlock their potential.
  • Silver's skill is trading - he has a vast knowledge of trade mechanics, and has a special affinity for Pokemon received in trades.
  • Crystal's skill is catching - she's a capture specialist who over the course of the series captures hundreds of different types of Pokemon.
  • Ruby's skill is contests - he's highly skilled at contests and at developing the innate qualities of a Pokemon to make it appear more beautiful, smart, tough, etc.
  • Sapphire's skill is gym battles - she's a highly adaptive battler, and manages to conquer all of Hoenn's gyms in exactly 80 days.
  • Emerald's skill is calming - he's able to intuitively sense where a Pokemon is from, and use a special soil mixture to remind it of its birthplace to soothe it when it rampages.

Later protagonists have special skills as well, but they tend to be more abstract in nature: for instance, the DPP trio's innate qualities - empathy, willpower, and understanding - have more to do with their characters than their Pokemon skills, and Black's obsessive dreaming about becoming Unova's champion is considered his special quality despite not being a skill at all. Some of the later protagonists do have more defined skills, though - Moon's specialty is mixing poisons and antidotes, while Henry's is tool-fixing: he repairs and maintains the tools used by certain Pokemon, such as Sirfetch'd's leek or Oranguru's fan.

Were I to define my special Pokemon skill, it probably would be trading too. I've traded a lot in all the games (god knows how many times; probably in the thousands by now) and absolutely love forming a team composed of six Pokemon with different OTs. Even in Pokemon Go I'm a lucky trade fanatic.

What would your special skill be? And are there any areas of Pokemon expertise left that the manga hasn't yet touched upon for their protagonists?
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Playing through the story multiple times and not getting completely bored!
 
KalosianPorygon said:
I wonder if Skill Swap was invented because of Shedinja. :smogthink:
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Probably not. Skill Swap fails if either user has Wonder Guard, and has since their introduction in Gen 3.

It's more likely that Skill Swap was invented because abilities were a brand-new mechanic and they wanted to explore ways to manipulate them. Though I wouldn't be surprised if Skill Swap originally worked with Wonder Guard during playtesting. In theory it's a neat tech to counter opposing Shedinja, but once you consider double battles and swapping abilities between your own Pokemon I can see why they decided it remove the interaction.
 
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