(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

Had a sudden fit of completionism last night and impulsively transferred a bunch of spare shinies and legendaries to Home then did GTS trades for several shinies I don't have registered yet. Looking at the list of what I do and don't have got me annoyed all over again about which species are still unable to be shiny.

I've registered this gripe before, and you might wonder why someone who didn't play SwSh or L:A might be invested in getting all the various Gigantamax species and alternate forms as shinies... but on the other hand, not playing those titles provides a whole other impetus to get them all shiny.

But yeah, as impressive as my collection is looking, there's some gaps that continue to irk me...


1. Gigantamax Melmetal. Are... are we just never getting this, then? Gen VIII is over and Dynamax died with it; I was expecting them to do an event with this at some point or perhaps update the game so that Max Soup worked on Melmetal. Instead... nothing. Maybe they just plain forgot.

2. Cosmog and Cosmoem. Why the fuck are these things still shiny-locked? Solgaleo and Lunala had the obligatory shiny event in Gen VII and can be freely caught that way in SwSh, yet the Cosmog you get given can't be. Precisely what is gained by this?

Even if they eventually do a random shiny Cosmog event in 5 years the end result is a shiny that's already out there. You could keep it as a Cosmoem and flex I guess? Part of me wonders if they're reserving the shiny for Go (since they said there'd be a way to get more Cosmog in future) but that seems unlikely, especially since there's precedent in Go for releasing the shinies of later stages of evolutionary lines without doing the same for earlier forms (Snorlax, Mantine, Hitmonchan/lee, Chimecho).

3. Ash-Greninja. I don't even particularly like Ash-Greninja but damn if it doesn't have a cool shiny. I want this just for the novelty.

4. Victini, Keldeo, and Meloetta. I actually don't much like any of Unova's mythicals but Victini at least has a great shiny. It's been more than a decade since BW and no sign of any of them yet. Cross your fingers for them in a BW remake I guess?

5. Manaphy. Technically not actually shiny-locked; I've got several. Game Freak obviously tried to shiny-lock it (in a primitive Gen IV sort of way), but due to a fuckup on their part it's perfectly doable to obtain a shiny of this species. Because it's only available because of said fuckup it's extremely rare but every time you offer it up as a trade countless people go "omg is this illegal???" So Game Freak could have just bit the bullet and said "ah, we tried, we failed, no sense trying to put the genie back in the bottle and shiny-locking it in BDSP" BUT THEY DID JUST THAT. What was I just saying about remakes making formerly-unavailable shinies available? Never mind.

6. Hoopa and Volcanion. I love both these Pokemon and they both have kick-ass shinies I'm sad I can't have. That's it, that's the tweet, as the kids say. Next.

7. Glastrier and Spectrier. I keep forgetting these two are shiny-locked since Regidrago and Regieleki werent. Isn't it about time they had a shiny distribution? It wouldn't even affect the fused forms since (I'm pretty sure) it works like Kyurem's fusion; the steed's shininess or lack thereof should be irrelevant in the equation.

Part of me is hoping that when Home eventually updates, one of the aforementioned species will be the reward for a full dex like Magearna was. Doubt it though!
 
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QuentinQuonce said:
1. Gigantamax Melmetal. Are... are we just never getting this, then? Gen VIII is over and Dynamax died with it; I was expecting them to do an event with this at some point or perhaps update the game so that Max Soup worked on Melmetal. Instead... nothing. Maybe they just plain forgot.
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Karxrida said:
I've probably mentioned this before, but the fact that Doubles is the official competitive format but barely gets utilized during the story. This means a bunch of moves are basically useless and you're often thrown for a loop during the few scant moments the format does show up.
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I think "thrown for a loop" is a bit of an exaggeration
It's pretty easy to adapt to, it's not like most double battles require much more effort than "you select TWO attacks against TWO targets"
QuentinQuonce said:
7. Glastrier and Spectrier. I keep forgetting these two are shiny-locked since Regidrago and Regieleki werent. Isn't it about time they had a shiny distribution? It wouldn't even affect the fused forms since (I'm pretty sure) it works like Kyurem's fusion; the steed's shininess or lack thereof should be irrelevant in the equation.

Part of me is hoping that when Home eventually updates, one of the aforementioned species will be the reward for a full dex like Magearna was. Doubt it though!
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See, I think in Calyrex's case the reasoning is because of the merged form. Because unlike Kyurem (which is a frankenstein monster) or Necrozma (which is already forcing a change on its hosts; in fact while the shiny merged forms are meant to reference the shiny "lit up" forms, there's actually subtle differences in the coloring), Calyrex is (by intentional gameplay design) literally just riding a horse. The only true change that happens is to Calyrex, who is a small part of the design.
So it feels more obvious for something to be "off" if you had, say, a shiny Spectrier and that's why they didn't released them during gen 8 and I wouldn't be surprised if they might pass during Gen 9.

The funniest thing about the Manaphy shiny locking is it makes it the only Mythical you can't get Shiny in BDSP. Phione can just be bred per usual, but all 3 of the event encounters (even arceus!) can be shiny. Why even bother?
 
R_N said:
See, I think in Calyrex's case the reasoning is because of the merged form. Because unlike Kyurem (which is a frankenstein monster) or Necrozma (which is already forcing a change on its hosts; in fact while the shiny merged forms are meant to reference the shiny "lit up" forms, there's actually subtle differences in the coloring), Calyrex is (by intentional gameplay design) literally just riding a horse. The only true change that happens is to Calyrex, who is a small part of the design.
So it feels more obvious for something to be "off" if you had, say, a shiny Spectrier and that's why they didn't released them during gen 8 and I wouldn't be surprised if they might pass during Gen 9.
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I'd be surprised if the thinking on GF's part was this thorough (beyond "let's hold these ones back") but it's a good reasoning nonetheless.

Given that the focus is on Calyrex in the DLC, though (and the bird trio also) I was legitimately surprised the first time I found out that Spectrier and Glastrier were shiny-locked given that Regieleki and Drago aren't. The horses and the titans are more like props than they are the focal point of the story. The consequence of them being so tied to Calyrex is that they don't really feel complete on their own so I wouldn't be surprised for a future shiny distribution to be for all three of them, with Calyrex likely the first to be released if it's not simultaneous.

R_N said:
The funniest thing about the Manaphy shiny locking is it makes it the only Mythical you can't get Shiny in BDSP. Phione can just be bred per usual, but all 3 of the event encounters (even arceus!) can be shiny. Why even bother?
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Right?? Do an event distribution if you absolutely must but doing it this way kind of reads like them wanting to pretend it was never available at all. The only real consequence is that you can't get a shiny Manaphy with an up-to-date origin mark (for those who care about such things) but anyone who simply wants to register the shiny colouration in their dex can do so with relative ease.
 
QuentinQuonce said:
I'd be surprised if the thinking on GF's part was this thorough (beyond "let's hold these ones back") but it's a good reasoning nonetheless.

Given that the focus is on Calyrex in the DLC, though (and the bird trio also) I was legitimately surprised the first time I found out that Spectrier and Glastrier were shiny-locked given that Regieleki and Drago aren't. The horses and the titans are more like props than they are the focal point of the story. The consequence of them being so tied to Calyrex is that they don't really feel complete on their own so I wouldn't be surprised for a future shiny distribution to be for all three of them, with Calyrex likely the first to be released if it's not simultaneous.
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Reason they were base shiny locked was, regardless of any larger reason, probably the same reason the birds were: they show up in cutscenes and gamefreak can be weirdly adherent to that kind of continuity.
 
Coronis said:
Not all (far from it) Pokemon are designed with competitive battling in mind.. and most of the ones that are are far more recent… and more designed with VGC in mind.

Sometimes people do seem to forget this is a non-competitive forum
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Nokocchi said:
This is especially true for Mythicals, because they are banned from almost all official formats(Only allowed once at the end of Gen VII and again near the end of Gen VIII as a "last hurrah" of sorts for those games) and all battle facilities except for the Crystal and Sword/Shield Battle Towers, and the early ranks of the USUM version of the Battle Tree.
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I agree they don't need to be competitively viable as a rule either. I just listed my grievances because Meloetta's gimmick is so borderline impossible to use that even from a flavor/casual stand point most players will never really see it in action.

This stands out for me because they show off Meloetta pretty prominently in the anime with both forms, but it has one of the most cumbersome form changes of any they gave attention to (Giratina-O, Arceus changing with its plates, the Therian Forces of Nature, Shaymin, etc). Why show off the form so prominently when it's going to be such a chore to use as to be a let-down? Even the ones with weirder transformation conditions like Zygarde, Kyurem, or Necrozma still got shown off without too much complication to how they worked in the game (Kyurem could just change forms at will but honestly doesn't make much use of that in the film, while Necrozma still body-jacks Solgaleo/Lunala for its formes).

Gen 5 itself even had a pretty noticeable (design-wise) form change with Keldeo's Resolute form from just knowing a move it would want to run anyway. This again brings me back to "why complicate using it so much on a basic level?"
 
I feel like being pedantic here and say that it's not "borderline impossible" or "complicated" to understand or activate. Use move, Change form. It's easy to understand and fairly easy to do

& it's easy to see why they'd show it off prominently, because it's a Mythical Pokemon with a form change.

The problem is as has already been pointed out: the pokemon gameplay cannot do a "on the fly" Zelda/Sheik swap effeciently. The move doesn't change from special to physical and is a little underpowered, you only get 3 other move slots to try & make use of it to its best potential and you lose the form on switch.
And even then that's less cumbersome and more "well i guess my moveset is Relic Song/Close Combat/Psychic/Filler"

It's all just annoying more than anything.
 
R_N said:
The problem is as has already been pointed out: the pokemon gameplay cannot do a "on the fly" Zelda/Sheik swap effeciently. The move doesn't change from special to physical and is a little underpowered, you only get 3 other move slots to try & make use of it to its best potential and you lose the form on switch.
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To be fair, if they *really wanted* we do have moves that change affinity based on which stat is highest, so if they really wanted it to they could have it work same as Photon Geyser and the couple other moves that do.

That said, as you said we're talking of a Mythical, so it's unlikely they would bother with it due to being a combination of event only and not available for competitive play, unless if by any reason they decide to make another movie featuring it (and probably not even then)

The only time I can think that a balance pass was done on a Mythical was on Darkrai and it wasnt even because of Darkrai itself but cause of Smeargle lol...
 
cityscapes said:
not a fan of the new trend of making regional forms then leaving the original ones in the dust. like hisuian samurott, that guy is cool, they did a good job on the design. but then you look at unovan samurott and you just ask, why does this mon exist in comparison? why is it even here? why doesn't it even get sharpness?

this doesn't even apply for all of them. i think unovan lilligant is cool and meaningfully distinct from the hisui form. same for decidueye. some of the others though just need some attention. even if hisuian typhlosion's fire/ghost is certainly more flashy than johto typhlosion's pure fire, pure fire is still an interesting typing on its own; mons like torkoal and entei made it work fine.
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Hisuian Typhlosion had the bad luck to be followed up less than a year later by Skeledirge, which has the same type and is better than it at everything.
 
R_N said:
I feel like being pedantic here and say that it's not "borderline impossible" or "complicated" to understand or activate. Use move, Change form. It's easy to understand and fairly easy to do

& it's easy to see why they'd show it off prominently, because it's a Mythical Pokemon with a form change.

The problem is as has already been pointed out: the pokemon gameplay cannot do a "on the fly" Zelda/Sheik swap effeciently. The move doesn't change from special to physical and is a little underpowered, you only get 3 other move slots to try & make use of it to its best potential and you lose the form on switch.
And even then that's less cumbersome and more "well i guess my moveset is Relic Song/Close Combat/Psychic/Filler"

It's all just annoying more than anything.
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I wouldn't go as far to say that on the fly swapping in general doesn't work, though it's definitely awkward to run a physical/special swap without a move that can swap categories. At the very least, Aegislash shows that offensive/defensive swapping can do well.
 
Ironmage said:
I wouldn't go as far to say that on the fly swapping in general doesn't work, though it's definitely awkward to run a physical/special swap without a move that can swap categories. At the very least, Aegislash shows that offensive/defensive swapping can do well.
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Yeh but offensive/defensive swap doesn't really change any move relevance (other than body press i guess lol), whereas a phisical/special swap means you have 1-3 useless moves at any given time.

There were some ultra-necrozma bait sets back in gen 7 that would occasionally make use of photon geyser hitting phisical on duskmane then turning into special once going into ultra, but it was a extremely niche use and hardly practical (due to having to forego transformation if wanting to hit on phisical + basically having no item).
 
Let me add another annoyance while I'm at it then: "De-mythified" Pokemon still being barred from VGC bothers me a bit, this being Mythical Pokemon that are legally available through in-game events without requiring any temporary event access or windows. Examples would include Magearna via QR code, Sinnoh's Legendaries after PLA (granted some require old-save Bonuses, but not all), Deoxys from ORAS, Keldeo in the Crown Tundra, or Meltan/Melmetal. Granted several of these only given regular access recently and thus haven't had a chance to qualify quite yet, but at that point it makes the restriction feel more arbitrary than meaningful since the issue isn't really "free" access to the Pokemon (which was already a debatable point for me in formats featuring transfer/DLC-locked Species like Incineroar in Gen 8).

It's not even like I expect the majority of them to be that fair (several don't suit doubles and then some like Magearna would be nightmares), but it feels like another dumb by product of just laissez-faire VGC rulings outside of generic category/label restrictions instead of a format or proper banlist, which feels like something I'd have expected Pokemon to try if they want VGC to be a pseudo E-Sport for people to follow and try as hard as they do in.
 
R_N said:
I think "thrown for a loop" is a bit of an exaggeration
It's pretty easy to adapt to, it's not like most double battles require much more effort than "you select TWO attacks against TWO targets"
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I worded that poorly. My problem is that you are probably not equipped to actually take advantage of the unique strategies enabled by Doubles due to its rarity, and just revert to "ungna bunga all damage" strats.
 
DrumstickGaming said:
Why is Mistralton Cave called Mistralton Cave and not Driftveil Cave? Is it because you can only access it with Surf in the original game? Is it because Clay Tunnel and Relic Passage (sequel only but meh) already fill the caves-around-Driftveil quota?

I don't get ittttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
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It's between the two cities so really it could be named after either, but it's probably some combination of the following factors:

1. Driftveil already has a location (the drawbridge) named after it while Mistralton doesn't
2. They might have thought it'd be confusing to have a cave named after the city you've only just arrived in when you don't get Surf until later
3. Mistralton Cave has a better ring to it than Driftveil Cave
4. As you say, they may have been planning the sequel thus not wanted to use the name up

pika pal said:
Let me add another annoyance while I'm at it then: "De-mythified" Pokemon still being barred from VGC bothers me a bit, this being Mythical Pokemon that are legally available through in-game events without requiring any temporary event access or windows. Examples would include Magearna via QR code, Sinnoh's Legendaries after PLA (granted some require old-save Bonuses, but not all), Deoxys from ORAS, Keldeo in the Crown Tundra, or Meltan/Melmetal. Granted several of these only given regular access recently and thus haven't had a chance to qualify quite yet, but at that point it makes the restriction feel more arbitrary than meaningful since the issue isn't really "free" access to the Pokemon (which was already a debatable point for me in formats featuring transfer/DLC-locked Species like Incineroar in Gen 8).

It's not even like I expect the majority of them to be that fair (several don't suit doubles and then some like Magearna would be nightmares), but it feels like another dumb by product of just laissez-faire VGC rulings outside of generic category/label restrictions instead of a format or proper banlist, which feels like something I'd have expected Pokemon to try if they want VGC to be a pseudo E-Sport for people to follow and try as hard as they do in.
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I don't think "de-mythifying" them makes them any less... well, mythical. It's more about not having to do events for everything and giving players a "bonus" of sorts in "hey, this thing is available now!" I personally like that they're making mythicals generally easier to obtain (at least most of the older ones but I think it's fair for newer ones to have at least a few years of being hard to get), but there's still a general reluctance on TPC's part to treat them like other species. Like how in Pokemon Go even though you can raid Darkrai, Genesect, and Hoopa and catch multiples of them just like any other legendary they still can't be traded - and how you still can't put any mythicals on the GTS. They often have quite powerful signature moves in conjunction with their high stats which is probably enough to constitute a balance issue; most regular species that have an especially powerful signature move have a significant drawback to compensate like poor stats or a hindering ability.

Idk maybe it is something that will change in the future but I doubt it. I'm not a competitive player, so just my two cents.

EDIT: It occurred to me just after I wrote this that there technically is precedent for GF tweaking the status of certain species: Deoxys was "un-mythicalised" in ORAS as it's needed to complete the Pokedex, and Ho-oh and Lugia were effectively mythicals in Gen III and DP as they're not. But that's a minor game-to-game thing, not them fully removing mythical status. So idk. But I think that mythicals will stay special-status even if they're freely available.

SwampySwampert said:
Hisuian Typhlosion had the bad luck to be followed up less than a year later by Skeledirge, which has the same type and is better than it at everything.
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Non-competitive player question: is it? They have quite different stat spreads.
 
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QuentinQuonce said:
Non-competitive player question: is it? They have quite different stat spreads.
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The stat spreads are different but Typhlosion's not really accomplishing much with its stat spread, abilities, moves compared to Skeledirge's.

Chandelure & Blacephalon aren't in Gen 9 but I imagine even in Nat. Dex (which is the only one that lest you play Typhlosion-H currently anyway) you're not going to run it over any of the three other options.

There's also Ceruledge & Marowak-A but those are physical options
 
QuentinQuonce said:
Non-competitive player question: is it? They have quite different stat spreads.
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I can speak for Singles, the issue is that Hisuian-Typhlosion doesn't really do anything better than Skeledirge to the degree you would run it for those better-at roles. Dirge has a much better ability option over it, is bulkier to better utilize utility moves and Recovery, and is similar in strength + Torch Song to still pull off Wall-breaking or boosting without forfeiting a turn for momentum (someone could switch-in a fast Fire-weak/Frail Mon on CM, not so much with Torch Song). Typhlosion has a neat signature move that's essentially Hex that spreads its own burns, but it relies on that ATK drop to survive much while still not being fast enough to pull off a cleaner or bulky enough for something like a Calm Mind Win-Con.

It's certainly an improvement on original Typhlosion, but it goes from having no stand-out role to having roles it's outclassed in if at the top level. What it really would have appreciated over the original Typhlosion was dumping its ATK stat for a bit MORE speed, not a bit less. Keeping a more useful HA than Frisk also wouldn't have hurt: Flash Fire like the original, or Flame Body for example to help spread more burns for Infernal Parade.
 
QuentinQuonce said:
Oh wow, I legit didn't realise Hisuian Typhlosion's HA was Frisk when I asked that - checked the page briefly and it showed as Flash Fire. Yeah, that's... a really underwhelming HA. Damn, that's really disappointing.

Makes sense! Skeledirge is cool though, a worthy winner of "best Fire/Ghost starter"


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iirc it was flash fire in pla (all of the new hisuian forms had the same hidden abilities as their other forms -- i assume hidden abilities are unobtainable in pla so they didn't bother?)
 
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