SPOILERS! Mysteries and Conspiracies of Pokemon

Pikachu315111 said:
Now please ignore all the trainers who in the past have caught one, especially the NPCs. Their Battle Facility teams don't exist in canon, why would you think it does?
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Because the other trainers in the Battle Facilities are top-level trainers, equally or moreso skilled than the player at Champion level. There's no reason that they wouldn't be able to meet and capture legendaries, especially in light of things like Latias' dex entry referring to it living in "herds".

And when facility bosses canonically use legendaries, there's even less reason to say that minor NPCs can't or wouldn't. One NPC outside the World Tournament building in B2W2 makes reference to using Lunar Dance in battle "on rare occasions" which might be just as simple as her occasionally using it via Sketch or Metronome but in context seems more like a wink to the audience to say "yep, I have a Cresselia." Steven is shown to have some sort of friendship/affinity with the Lati species in ORAS. Less serious examples include an NPC in Alola who exclaims that he just got a Mewtwo via a Wonder Trade, though this one is more Rule of Funny than anything else (and I guess also clues the player in that they can trade legendaries if they so choose).

As for why scientists don't know about the bird trio - it's inconsistent, but in their debut generation legendaries are often afforded an air of mystery and uniqueness. None of the Alola legendaries are used in the Battle Tree; Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf aren't used in the Gen IV Frontier or Subway; the Johto trio aren't used in the Battle Tower in Gen II. The story they wanted to tell around the bird trio is that they're unknown; if they're included in future generations, they might be less fabled.

But why do you assume this is the case for all legendaries? In the case of the Regi species, for example, it's pretty much confirmed that they have been studied:

Regirock

Regirock's body is composed entirely of rocks. Recently, a study made the startling discovery that the rocks were all unearthed from different locations. (Sapphire dex entry)

It is entirely composed of rocks with no sign of a brain or heart. It is a mystery even to modern scientists. (FRLG dex entry)

Regice

Its entire body is made of Antarctic ice. After extensive studies, researchers believe the ice was formed during an ice age. (Emerald dex entry)

Having a legendary isn't something you'd expect most people (particularly serious trainers) to shout loudly about, but Drayden's comment in Gen V that "if a Pokemon didn't want to be with a human, it would simply leave" cause me to think that in the event that a legendary Pokemon partners with a human it's pretty much at the Pokemon's discretion, as in the case of Noland and Articuno in the anime. The fact that in-game they're part of your team like any other is just gameplay and story segregation. So it is perfectly plausible to me that many legendaries simply do not want to be studied and that anyone who pushed their luck too much by trying would find themselves very quickly abandoned.

And research almost certainly is ongoing on some of them, but research is slow. Think how little progress gets made even on topics we know a lot about. If the Galarian bird trio are a relatively recent sight (even if "recent" here means the last 40 or 50 years) then yes, it's plausible that little would still be known beyond the observations and stories that typify legendaries.
 
Also I think it is pretty reasonable to just sort of ignore most of the player captures and stuff like battle facilities as quasi-non-canon
Shoutouts to Laventon, the one professor probably canonically get to research every single legend in Hisui with little to no questions asked.


Nitro Indigo said:
The real takeaway from this is that Antarctica apparently exists in Pokémon. (Also, today I learned that the "Regirock has no organs" entry that TheJWittz reacted to in his Crown Tundra video was recycled.)
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The information in the entry isn't new, as shown above, but the entry itself is unique.





Complete aside here, but when is the last time Pokeballs were depicted as being able to shrink for storage purposes. Then anime used to do it all the time, but I had a small realization that they just don't do that any more. And then started to think how the games generally don't show them shrinking ever, always showing them at about full size. I wonder when that got retired in the anime?
 
Nitro Indigo said:
The real takeaway from this is that Antarctica apparently exists in Pokémon. (Also, today I learned that the "Regirock has no organs" entry that TheJWittz reacted to in his Crown Tundra video was recycled.)
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Well yeah, the Pokemon world is Earth. As evidenced by the symmetry of referenced historical events like the Iron Age and the moon landing.

It's just that on this version of Earth France is called Kalos, Britain is called Galar, and the USA may or may not exist but the states within it we know better as Hawaii and Arizona are called Alola and Orre. Real-world locations referenced have been replaced or updated with their Pokemon world counterparts as time has gone on: an explicit reference to Mt Everest in early instalments was changed to "the world's highest mountain" in the remake. In the unlikely event that we get a Pokemon game set in a region based off of China or Nepal the Everest equivalent will most probably be renamed something different, much in the same way as Mt Fuji's in-universe equivalent is Mt Silver or the Isle of Man is called the Isle of Armour.
 
You have probably seen my SWSH Dex Entry Flow Chart posted several times now, the fruit of a lot of misplaced, still-ongoing labor.

Said ongoing labor has dug in and done all the Paldea Pokedex pokemon and the reason I'm posting about it here can best be described as another flow chart

Dex-Flowchart-SV.png


This is full of such bizarre decisions:
  • Alright so first of all, most forms aren't actually viewable in the Paldea Pokedex. The most glaring examples are Galarian Meowth & Johto Wooper, since those are AVAILABLE in the game as it is. But you might write that off as wanting consistency with Perrserker & Quagsire not getting entries. But this reasoning doesn't explain why all the regional other forms are in the same boat! EXCEPT for original Tauros, who reuses an old entry. ALSO? Cap Pikachu got new entries.
  • If you start digging across generations at Pokemon who didn't get new entries, you might spy a lot of Hisui Form pokemon. That's weird in its own right, but would be consistent, except Qwilfish got a new entry?? Basculin is also odd; you can blame it on always being one form or the other (likely why the Shellos & Deerling lines have new entries, for the record), but USUM has entries it can reuse right there for just this situation.
  • Likewise you'll notice that Girafarig, Stantler, the Teddiursa line, Pawniard lines got new entries probably since those all got new evolutions in LA or now, but then there's the glaring exceptions of Dunsparce, the Mankey line and Scyther.
  • Putting those aside, there's still random Pokemon in gen 2 & 5 who did & didn't get new ones. Why did the Gothita line get new entries, but not the Tynamo line? Why did the Hoppip line get new entries, but not the Mareep line?
  • Spoink needs a quick lead up: Since Leaf Green there's been a habit of occasionally bringing back an old entry and slightly tweaking it. Just a little bit most of the time, like to add a "the" or an "a" or replace a word with a similar word. For example Combee's HGSS entry says "honey" but the SV entry says "nectar" but is otherwise unchanged; it's clearly the same one.
    Spoinks' Scarlet entry is this: Spoink will die if it stops bouncing. The pearl on its head amplifies its psychic powers.
    Spoinks' FRLG entry is this: It apparently dies if it stops bouncing about. It carries a pearl from Clamperl on its head.
    It's the same information, presented similarly, but it's so rewritten (presumably to work around the Clamperl) you have to wonder why they didnt just use the DP entry. For the record, the violet entry is just from BW2.
My ever growing dex document (if I dig down, maybe by the end of the year....?) has all entries mapped out and there's really just no pattern. Some pokemon who kept getting entries still got new entries. Some didn't. Some pokemon who missed a bunch of opportunities at new entries still reused old entries (Tynamo line is a glaring example).
I don't think you can even blame this on development issues, which is just a crutch to lean on, since by & large the weirdness is contained to Gens 2 & 5. If there were scattered new entries in all gens 1-5 (Shellos excluded, it has a reason even if like basculin it could have reused entries from the Alola games), that'd be one thing, but...nope!

At least with Lapras in SWSH, it was effectively an isolated case, so I could float the theory of "scrapped regional form". Can't do that here, not really; there's way too many cases!

Something to chew on, I guess!
 
R_N said:
se animations are ones already used in the game, even the Jigglypuff line ones where they sometimes jsut decide to fly around on their own.
If there's two to ask about it's "Why Hawlucha?" since as far as I know it never flies when you see it in game and "Why not Garchomp" because I am pretty sure that there is a Garchomp that will fly around and chase you down around the mountains.
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So coming back to this real quick
I was messing around with the Garchomp that flies around the crater of paldea and...this thing has entirely unique battle animations just for its flight mode, that you will only ever see if you seek out the flying Garchomp to fight.

I thought that, since it can't be used with the unique animation while on water (other Pokemon, such as Jigglypuff, can), that maybe it just landed then went into battle mode but no it has animations for getting hit and doing attacks and everything.
Then I noticed that, when you first send it out over water it starts in the flight mode, just for a second, and then transitions to the floatie.


How bizarre
 
R_N said:
Complete aside here, but when is the last time Pokeballs were depicted as being able to shrink for storage purposes. Then anime used to do it all the time, but I had a small realization that they just don't do that any more. And then started to think how the games generally don't show them shrinking ever, always showing them at about full size. I wonder when that got retired in the anime?
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XY003, when James catches Inkay:

If I had to guess, since this isn't a thing in the games (and something hard to replicate with merchandise), they probably started downplaying the shrinking/growing by just not showing it. It's still a thing, and if like with the Inkay catch scene they keep the trainer's body on full screen they'll show them taking the small ball off the belt and growing it, but otherwise happens off screen and we just skip to the trainer holding the full size ball. Why all instances of Poke Balls are full size could be explained away in several ways: it puts less stress on the Pokemon in the ball, full size is the default and shrinking is only a short term thing if carrying it around on a belt or harness for that size, trainers just prefer keeping the ball full size to show respect for their Pokemon, etc..

green_typhlosion said:
In the unlikely event that we get a Pokemon game set in a region based off of China or Nepal the Everest equivalent will most probably be renamed something different, much in the same way as Mt Fuji's in-universe equivalent is Mt Silver or the Isle of Man is called the Isle of Armour.
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We sort of have cases of this:
  • Raichu's dex entry used to say it was able to knock out an Indian Elephant with its shock, Legends: Arceus than had Laventon say Raichu's shock is strong enough to knock out a Copperajah.
  • Lt. Surge's original title was "The Lightning American". This was before Gen V. In the next game where his title would be seen, Let's Go, it was changed to "The Lightning Lieutenant". Also someone in BW2's Pokemon World Tournament wonders if Lt. Surge is from Unova.

R_N said:
I was messing around with the Garchomp that flies around the crater of paldea and...this thing has entirely unique battle animations just for its flight mode, that you will only ever see if you seek out the flying Garchomp to fight.
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Yeah, something similar happened with me, but with Charizard. I decided to try it out in the Cinderace Tera Raid, when the battle started it was standing on the ground. Cinderace than knocks it out, and the next time I sent it out it was suddenly flying and fighting while flying! Is there something which determines this?
 
For a while, I've theorised that the reason why Gardevoir et al weren't in the human-like egg group until gen 8 is because they're made of Pure Ethereal Grace, whereas the human-likes are more fleshy, but Jynx being in it from the start kind of contradicts that. (Its N64 fainting animation shows it collapsing into itself like its "skin" is a void.) Either way, I'm almost certain they made all the egg group changes they did in gen 8 because people complained about them enough for The Pokémon Company's forum-skimming interns to notice... though that begs the question as to why they didn't retcon Nidorina/queen being unable to breed, since it's not like they've stuck with everything else from the 1996 guidebook.
 
Pikachu315111 said:
XY003, when James catches Inkay:

If I had to guess, since this isn't a thing in the games (and something hard to replicate with merchandise), they probably started downplaying the shrinking/growing by just not showing it. It's still a thing, and if like with the Inkay catch scene they keep the trainer's body on full screen they'll show them taking the small ball off the belt and growing it, but otherwise happens off screen and we just skip to the trainer holding the full size ball. Why all instances of Poke Balls are full size could be explained away in several ways: it puts less stress on the Pokemon in the ball, full size is the default and shrinking is only a short term thing if carrying it around on a belt or harness for that size, trainers just prefer keeping the ball full size to show respect for their Pokemon, etc..
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I assume the ball size thing isn't in the games (or most materials) just because they were meant to effectively be capsules. The anime probably came up with it just as a matter of "we need to store these somewhere, probably". And that button is so tantalizing to press and have it do something so they might've liked it for aesthetic animation reasons.
Yeah, something similar happened with me, but with Charizard. I decided to try it out in the Cinderace Tera Raid, when the battle started it was standing on the ground. Cinderace than knocks it out, and the next time I sent it out it was suddenly flying and fighting while flying! Is there something which determines this?
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With Charizard I'm guessing it as just a glitch, since I don't think Pokemon normally switch between their animations like that in battle.

Nitro Indigo said:
For a while, I've theorised that the reason why Gardevoir et al weren't in the human-like egg group until gen 8 is because they're made of Pure Ethereal Grace, whereas the human-likes are more fleshy, but Jynx being in it from the start kind of contradicts that. (Its N64 fainting animation shows it collapsing into itself like its "skin" is a void.) Either way, I'm almost certain they made all the egg group changes they did in gen 8 because people complained about them enough for The Pokémon Company's forum-skimming interns to notice... though that begs the question as to why they didn't retcon Nidorina/queen being unable to breed, since it's not like they've stuck with everything else from the 1996 guidebook.
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Until know I didn't even know they redid any of the egg groups in Gen 8. There could be other reasons why, maybe concerns about breeding in a limited dex who knows, but there's only a handful of lines that got the change (Bergmite, Ralts, Trapinch, Hawlucha) and all of them are base game. The Nidorans probably didn't get changed because they were DLC and whatever ideas/reasons they had for the original changes were probably not on their mind with the new batch.
 
Nitro Indigo said:
Breeding mechanics are needlessly obscure. I remember the first Bulbapedia page I ever read was the one for the Field egg group because someone linked to it on a forum, and it blew my mind.
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At the very least something the Pokedex should tell you which I don't think it does. Though it should also be something you're also alerted to when you put a Pokemon is a Daycare/Nursery or now have a picnic:

ATTENTION!
(Pokemon 1) & (Pokemon 2) have compatibility!
When two Pokemon are compatible there's a chance an Egg may suddenly appear!
The Eggs you'll find are of (female/non-Ditto Pokemon).​
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BIG ASHLEY said:
agree w this. every pokemon should be able to fuck every other pokemon and i'm not joking!!!
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They do, they just don't produce Eggs if not in the same Egg Group and it's not a male/female pairing or one of the parents is a Ditto.
 
Nitro Indigo said:
Breeding mechanics are needlessly obscure. I remember the first Bulbapedia page I ever read was the one for the Field egg group because someone linked to it on a forum, and it blew my mind.
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I don't think a single game gives one iota of a whiff of a hint as to how breeding works outside of "male + female = baby", let alone the benefits of using it. This is compounded by the obfuscation of the DV/IV system, so the whole thing seems like bloat to pad out Dex completion unless you go digging into the nitty gritty.

I think Game Freak was trying to lean into the social interaction aspect that made the franchise explode into popularity by withholding the information, meaning players would need to test and talk to each other to discover how breeding works. But I cannot fathom why they thought it was a good idea when literal spreadsheets need to be made to track all this stuff. I'm pretty sure a ton of people only found out about egg groups and moves via guide books.
 
Karxrida said:
I think Game Freak was trying to lean into the social interaction aspect that made the franchise explode into popularity by withholding the information, meaning players would need to test and talk to each other to discover how breeding works. But I cannot fathom why they thought it was a good idea when literal spreadsheets need to be made to track all this stuff. I'm pretty sure a ton of people only found out about egg groups and moves via guide books.
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The problem with this, especially really early on before the Internet was fully a thing (I'm talking Gen I and II here and early Gen III) is that you also got all manner of nonsense rumours and fake information, like Mew being under the truck or Bill's secret garden or there being special button combinations that would guarantee capture if done at the right moment.

And so much actual legit stuff got lost in that babble. I knew that Mew existed in the games and so obviously you somehow could get it, but it was a long time before I discovered that the truck rumour wasn't actually true. If you'd told me about the actual Mew Glitch I'd have had no clue whether you were making it up or not. Yes there was deliberate fakery but I remember some of my friends who played Pokemon at the time arguing completely sincerely that no, Mewthree was real or that Pikablu did exist because they'd heard about it and fully believed it.

Even on the actual websites that existed at the time, so much of the information was garbled and confused and many sites did list information that was plain untrue. (Anyone remember GameWinners.com? It's gone now but I used to visit it a lot back in the day.)

Now, was this completely a bad thing? I'd say no. The excitement and the mystery around the early games is something absolutely unimaginable now because hackers can strip down the code of any new release and any confusing mechanics like evolving Galarian Yamask will be figured out and exposed in detail within about 48 hours. There are whole communities dedicated to working out the precise mechanics of the Safari Zone or Mantine Surfing who can tell you for certain "this is how you maximise your points" rather than your friend telling you the method that worked for him one time when catching a Chansey. When you consider just how complex many aspects of the earlier games were, it's ludicrous that anyone could figure it out without the resource we enjoy today. But just look at how many things are still getting discovered for the first time in the older games, even now.
 
For a more Watsonian take, breeding (at least the system we interact with in-game with Eggs and the Day Care) is a relatively new phenomenon, given that the egg Mr. Pokemon discovers in GSC is a revolutionary development. You could chalk this up to awkward lore implementation of a new mechanic, but taken textually + all other flavor text for Eggs + the absence of eggs and breeding in PLA, I think it’s safe to say that breeding is A. a relatively new and poorly-understood phenomenon in-world and B. something different, but not entirely distinct from, reproduction in the wild.

With that in mind, the obtuseness of breeding makes a bit more sense - but only a bit. Like previously discussed, it was definitely in part to promote conversation and/or sell guidebooks, but it’s justified in-world by breeding being uncharted territory as far as in-world science goes. Given the flavor text in X and Y about eggs being more akin to cradles than actual eggs, there’s even more evidence that breeding in captivity and reproduction in the wild are very distinct phenomenons.
 
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Honestly it is odd that despite all the attempts at disclosure of mechanics (while still retaining some abstraction) over the years, they don't ever like..talk about egg groups to what I can recall. Like even abstractly? Like going "oh you know water types tend to be able to produce eggs with each other but not with bugs" or whatever. It feels like it'd be easy to just talk about it even if they really didn't want them listed somewhere.

Guidebook quip aside it genuinely feels like a blind spot they don't really consider because it's so ingrained in the fan consciousness. Which is saying something when SV is out here giving exact numeric values for Shiny encounters, damage multipliers, and even the masuda method!


I think the only Pokemon games that do anything with this are Pokemon Stadium 2 and Pokedex 3D. Even Pokemon Home doesn't do this even though the Mobile version is meant to emulate a Pokedex.
 
To clarify something, since the Breeding mechanics are fairly obfuscated in game, where do the names for the Egg Groups come from? Datamines, guide books consistently using a term, or just fan dubs that caught on like "Eeveelution" was for a long time?
 
pika pal said:
To clarify something, since the Breeding mechanics are fairly obfuscated in game, where do the names for the Egg Groups come from? Datamines, guide books consistently using a term, or just fan dubs that caught on like "Eeveelution" was for a long time?
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They're explicitly referred to internally, and then the names themselves were given for Stadium 2/Pokedex 3D

I also assumed or misremembered that they were given in guide books as well, and it's possible they are in other books, but i pulled out a few of mine (a nintendo power Crystal guide, a Versus Gold/Silver guide and a Prima Ruby/Sapphire guide) and they actually aren't. They do list out the "interest" messages (something I forgot and also I'm pretty sure is removed entirely in SV oops), list out the ones that can't breed, and talk at length about Ditto's interactions. Even the otherwise super detailed Versus guidebook for GS I have doesnt have egg groupings.
 
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