(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[R_N]

Deoxys's forms are still called Forme in my Gen 3 Prima guides, so I doesn't seem like a Gen 4 invention. They don't use either Form or Forme Castform or Unown so I dunno what the official word for them was at the time.

I definitely remember "Form" being thrown around for Deoxys instead during gen 3, but that also could have just been lack of info passed around.

but really I should have just left out that qualifer entirely since, regardless of what the timing was, it only affected Deoxys anyway.

 

[Esserise]

Another little inconsistency is that the Japanese word that is usually translated as “Forme” has occasionally been rendered as just “Form” in the English translation. This occurs with Cherrim, Sinistea / Polteageist, and I believe Terapagos as well.

Why Cherrim or Sinistea’s forms would be considered “Formes” is completely beyond me, though.

 

[Castersvarog]

My immediate thought is the Rotom forms, because the Starmobiles feel like the same concept (a machine-related Pokemon with multiple type-varied forms based on what kind of machine it's actually inhabiting), just not actually obtainable like the Rotoms are. Even then though they change things much more drastically since they alter type, ability, share a modified signature move (Torque), and more dramatically alter their stats than the Rotom forms.

Oh how I wish they gave Revavroom the torque moves via a tutor, or even by Ortega who made the starmobiles to begin with. Would have been amazing coverage for it, but it’s only stuck with STAB and bulldoze as physical moves.

 

[Coronis]

Another little inconsistency is that the Japanese word that is usually translated as “Forme” has occasionally been rendered as just “Form” in the English translation. This occurs with Cherrim, Sinistea / Polteageist, and I believe Terapagos as well.

Why Cherrim or Sinistea’s forms would be considered “Formes” is completely beyond me, though.

Yeah wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was just another translation issue.

e.g Gens 1-4 didn’t acknowledge the difference between Legends and Mythicals outside Japan but it was always a different group in Japan.

According to Bulbapedia at least:

Some Pokémon have major variations between individuals, known as forms (Japanese: すがたform).

At times, these differences are purely cosmetic and have no bearing on the Pokémon's attributes besides its appearance; however, several Pokémon differ in stats, type, Ability, moves they can learn, etc. depending on their form. Among these are several Legendary and Mythical Pokémon, whose alternate forms are usually spelled as Formes (Japanese: フォルム Forme).

Various publications probably mistranslate things but yeah I’ve always preferred Legend/Mythical as Forme vs others as Form

(regional forms ala Birds are a unique thing atm)

 

[QuentinQuonce]

So the anime and the Adventures manga play up the connection between the lake trio and the three protagonists - Mesprit appeared to Dawn, Azelf to Ash, and Uxie to Brock, while Mesprit has a connection with Diamond, Azelf has a connection with Pearl, and Uxie has a connection with Platinum. All these connections highlight the temperament of those characters.

The games don't do this (which is fine, not all the different canons need to) but there's... this weird token shrug towards the idea that Mesprit has some sort of connection with you, the player. In DP when the lake trio restrain Dialga/Palkia it appears to you for a moment before they return home, as if to imply... something? ...and it's the only one of the three to roam, which Professor Rowan surmises means it wants to play with you. Okay, sure. But Mesprit isn't particularly significant beyond that so I've always found the moment a little off. And while Barry would be expected to have a link to Azelf, being impulsive and all that, there's not much linking the rival character to Uxie so the whole trio aspect isn't there in the games. It just feels very nothing-y, like it's meant to mean more than it does.

 

[R_N]

So the anime and the Adventures manga play up the connection between the lake trio and the three protagonists - Mesprit appeared to Dawn, Azelf to Ash, and Uxie to Brock, while Mesprit has a connection with Diamond, Azelf has a connection with Pearl, and Uxie has a connection with Platinum. All these connections highlight the temperament of those characters.

The games don't do this (which is fine, not all the different canons need to) but there's... this weird token shrug towards the idea that Mesprit has some sort of connection with you, the player. In DP when the lake trio restrain Dialga/Palkia it appears to you for a moment before they return home, as if to imply... something? ...and it's the only one of the three to roam, which Professor Rowan surmises means it wants to play with you. Okay, sure. But Mesprit isn't particularly significant beyond that so I've always found the moment a little off. And while Barry would be expected to have a link to Azelf, being impulsive and all that, there's not much linking the rival character to Uxie so the whole trio aspect isn't there in the games. It just feels very nothing-y, like it's meant to mean more than it does.

I don't think it's meant to imply anything other than the developers wanted Mesprit to stand out a little more. Maybe at most meaning Mesprit took a liking to you as a sort of premonition that you'd be pretty important later on; Platinum plays with the idea the spirits definitely find you to be the solution to their problems, and that'd probably be lead by Mesprit.

Pretty similar to Suicune, I guess.

 

[Esserise]

Cynthia’s grandpa in Celestic Town says that, since you’re from Twinleaf, which is right next to Lake Verity, that Mesprit “must be watching over you.” I kinda take that to mean that the lake guardians are aware of their surroundings, and the player just happens to live within Mesprit’s purview, so Mesprit might have taken an interest in you.

Of course, going to look for Mesprit is also what kicks off the player’s journey in DPP. Between that and the above, there’s the seed of a relationship based on mutual curiosity there. I would guess that’s why they gave it ever so slightly more focus than the other two.

 

[Sonikku A]

So the anime and the Adventures manga play up the connection between the lake trio and the three protagonists - Mesprit appeared to Dawn, Azelf to Ash, and Uxie to Brock, while Mesprit has a connection with Diamond, Azelf has a connection with Pearl, and Uxie has a connection with Platinum. All these connections highlight the temperament of those characters.

The games don't do this (which is fine, not all the different canons need to) but there's... this weird token shrug towards the idea that Mesprit has some sort of connection with you, the player. In DP when the lake trio restrain Dialga/Palkia it appears to you for a moment before they return home, as if to imply... something? ...and it's the only one of the three to roam, which Professor Rowan surmises means it wants to play with you. Okay, sure. But Mesprit isn't particularly significant beyond that so I've always found the moment a little off. And while Barry would be expected to have a link to Azelf, being impulsive and all that, there's not much linking the rival character to Uxie so the whole trio aspect isn't there in the games. It just feels very nothing-y, like it's meant to mean more than it does.

Clearly it's cuz comp wise it's better than the other 2- no wait, that's untrue
Uhh...cuz pink is manly I guess

 

[CPU]

I feel you brother, both my youtube and chrome feeds are full of these and generic "can i beat X game with stupid self imposed limit?" (Spoilers, the answer is "yes just grind more" every time)

It's got even worse nowadays on chrome feed (and i assume similar ones) due to the spam of those low budget AI generated articles.
One of my favourite "pokemon related" one was "How to get your starter in pokemon scarlet and violet". Gdi really?

This was my favorite Chrome feed Pokémon Article

 

[Sonikku A]

Something that bugs me is how the Zangoose/Seviper conflict was censored partially

But not fully censored

In RSE Zangoose noticeably has purple claws in its sprite. Even with the GBA screen in mind, it's still purplish compared to other greys in the game

In art the claws are a dark grey. Gen 4 (even in the Feb/March leak), Zangoose similarly had grey claws

With this we can assume the purple's actually blood, intended to be removed later
However the other thing to note is that this was a two way street
Note shinies

Not only are the claws redder in relation to Seviper's purple getting redder, Seviper's tail and teeth are bluer in relation to Zangoose's stripes. It's implied that the stripes on both aren't just a design quirk; it's their own scars/blood

But oddly as stated, only Zangoose was changed, while Seviper retained its colors. Even weirder, Zangoose's shiny retains the redder claws unlike normal

I suspect it's cuz Seviper genuinely looks lamer without the red teeth/tail, while Zangoose's tweak was enough
Speaking of, hypothetical "what if they never fought"

So my nitpick really is "why was only one of them compensated?"

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I don't think it's meant to imply anything other than the developers wanted Mesprit to stand out a little more. Maybe at most meaning Mesprit took a liking to you as a sort of premonition that you'd be pretty important later on; Platinum plays with the idea the spirits definitely find you to be the solution to their problems, and that'd probably be lead by Mesprit.

Pretty similar to Suicune, I guess.

Cynthia’s grandpa in Celestic Town says that, since you’re from Twinleaf, which is right next to Lake Verity, that Mesprit “must be watching over you.” I kinda take that to mean that the lake guardians are aware of their surroundings, and the player just happens to live within Mesprit’s purview, so Mesprit might have taken an interest in you.

Of course, going to look for Mesprit is also what kicks off the player’s journey in DPP. Between that and the above, there’s the seed of a relationship based on mutual curiosity there. I would guess that’s why they gave it ever so slightly more focus than the other two.

I guess but with Suicune it's built up more. Like you can encounter it all around Johto which is atmospheric, and while all three of the beasts act the same way in GS in Crystal/HGSS Suicune apparently chooses not to battle you and is just watching you. This is partially justified by an NPC mentioning that Suicune is "the closest to Ho-oh" out of the three and is testing you.

Meanwhile the Mesprit thing stands out more because of the trio-linkage in the anime and manga I mentioned; Mesprit seemingly has no special interest in Barry, even though it's his idea to go to Lake Verity, and it only wakes up once Team Galactic disturb it in DP. In Platinum you hear its cry at the start of the game so it's more explicit that it's there from the start. So the idea that it's watching over you from the off isn't really convincing in DP, and I reckon the cry (which my bad I'd forgotten about until writing this post) was probably added to make that more obvious.

So it's just another Platinum improvement, then. I replayed Pearl recently so I guess it was fresher in my mind.

 

[pika pal]

Speaking of Gen 4 (and several subsequent games), the limitation on catching a Pokemon if more than one is present on the field is asinine. The Orre Games already had the basic mechanics in place to just select one Pokemon out of the two to throw the Ball at (even when both targets were eligible to catch like in XD's late game), so why is this how it works in the mainline entries?

My incredibly cynical assumption is that the Main Game engines actually can't handle a capture without immediately concluding the battle (as opposed to holding the capture screen/confirm until the rest of the battle resolves) and they took the lazier route of a simple
"if Pokemon > 1
then Break
else Throw Ball"

conditional rather than change the end-battle condition or implementing QoL that another company had done already.

 

[R_N]

Speaking of Gen 4 (and several subsequent games), the limitation on catching a Pokemon if more than one is present on the field is asinine. The Orre Games already had the basic mechanics in place to just select one Pokemon out of the two to throw the Ball at (even when both targets were eligible to catch like in XD's late game), so why is this how it works in the mainline entries?

My incredibly cynical assumption is that the Main Game engines actually can't handle a capture without immediately concluding the battle (as opposed to holding the capture screen/confirm until the rest of the battle resolves) and they took the lazier route of a simple
"if Pokemon > 1
then Break
else Throw Ball"

conditional rather than change the end-battle condition or implementing QoL that another company had done already.

It could be that but honestly I could see it as just, weird developer decision
"We can't let you just catch both/all Pokemon....For ~game feel~ reasons you have to choose : )"
Feels like a very "game developer" reason.

Contrast with the Orre games (where you have a hyper limited selection of Pokemon and making you choose because you didn't get them in time would be stupid & out of your control) or Legends (where the entire game is actively based around capturing Pokemon). If Let's Go had proper wild battles + double wild battles, I suspect it would also let you capture multiples. Likewise if the next game is also a "capture" game, it will probably do the same.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Speaking of Gen 4 (and several subsequent games), the limitation on catching a Pokemon if more than one is present on the field is asinine. The Orre Games already had the basic mechanics in place to just select one Pokemon out of the two to throw the Ball at (even when both targets were eligible to catch like in XD's late game), so why is this how it works in the mainline entries?

My incredibly cynical assumption is that the Main Game engines actually can't handle a capture without immediately concluding the battle (as opposed to holding the capture screen/confirm until the rest of the battle resolves) and they took the lazier route of a simple
"if Pokemon > 1
then Break
else Throw Ball"

conditional rather than change the end-battle condition or implementing QoL that another company had done already.

From what I know, yes that is the case. I've seen videos of people using "catch trainer's Pokemon" codes in Gen IV and it does seem to work this way: if you catch the first Pokemon of a 5-Pokemon team, it concludes the battle and acts as a win.

So I expect it works the same way in Gen III. The Orre games probably specifically added a function that allows battles to continue on if a Pokemon is caught, but since it wasn't something needed for the Gen IV games it's almost certainly unique to them.

 

[Sonikku A]

Decomp confirms it was legit a hardcoded issue with immediately stopping battle after name select screen for captured mon
The fact it was kept many Gens hurts...

 

[Hugin]

From what I know, yes that is the case. I've seen videos of people using "catch trainer's Pokemon" codes in Gen IV and it does seem to work this way: if you catch the first Pokemon of a 5-Pokemon team, it concludes the battle and acts as a win.

So I expect it works the same way in Gen III. The Orre games probably specifically added a function that allows battles to continue on if a Pokemon is caught, but since it wasn't something needed for the Gen IV games it's almost certainly unique to them.

I'll confirm that for Gen III. I did a Nuzlocke run of Emerald where I RP'd as a Rocket grunt and could only catch other trainer's ace mon. I used the standard Gameshark code and it would end the battle after a capture, still treat it as a victory for Badges/Progression/TMs, but not for money.

 

[Axiemeister]

you know something very very vwry vwey little microscopic infinitesimal that nonetheless annoys me?

that it's dragonium z and not draconium z

 

[DreamPrince]

Something about the super mechanics that always annoyed me. When Mega Evolutions were introduced in XY, Masuda explicitly said that the reason that Mega Stones existed was to make sure Mega Pokemon were limited by losing their item slot. A similar story with Z-Moves: It was one time only thing, and once the move was exposed, you effectively had a useless item slot. Not to mention Z-Moves and four Attacks was worse than running a LO, Choice Item, or heck even expert belt with four attacks and a wide movepool. Plus the fact that Z-Moves weren’t strictly used Offensively: Z-Trick Room and Haze were great ways to play around countermeasures like Taunt and Imprison.

Which I always found it bizzare from a design and balance perspective that Dynamax and Teraastalization never allowed the item slot to be sacrificed. Especially in the former's case, since one reason why Dynamax was seen as so uncompetitive was not just the unpredictability, but the absurd combos like Weakness Policy, Life Orb, and Scope Lens for Togekiss's case. If there was an item slot, not only would those unpredictablility be significantly reduced but it would ensure those absurd combos would exist.

I'm guessing GF is more keen on trying more unpredictable mechanics is because they know that VGC is Bo3 and unpredictable mechanics are less unpredictable when you have matches to fall back on as well as the new open team sheet ruleset ruining surprise strategies. But still that doesn't take in account Battlespot Singles, the official cartridge ladder, since that meta is also hosted by GF and has a huge portion of the Japanese playerbase, and Dynamax was significantly harder to handle in 3v3 compared to VGC from my understanding .

 

[R_N]

I followed someone who did Battlespot Singles a lot during gen 8 and it seemed like something the playerbase seemed to be able to handle since it was mostly when it went up vs when you went up and how to deal with it. It didn't seem especially overwhelming, though of course the person I followed was someone very careful with their play so that might have helped.

Terastalization seems like a similar boat, and not quite as wild as you'd think. Lot of people seem to just stick with the default or the most popular.

I think the different ecosystems just wind up adapting to those who play a lot. It's kind of interesting.

 

[DreamPrince]

I followed someone who did Battlespot Singles a lot during gen 8 and it seemed like something the playerbase seemed to be able to handle since it was mostly when it went up vs when you went up and how to deal with it. It didn't seem especially overwhelming, though of course the person I followed was someone very careful with their play so that might have helped.

Terastalization seems like a similar boat, and not quite as wild as you'd think. Lot of people seem to just stick with the default or the most popular.

I think the different ecosystems just wind up adapting to those who play a lot. It's kind of interesting.

Interesting. Was it a Japanese player?

 

[R_N]

Interesting. Was it a Japanese player?

English

Though yeah the different play styles of the opponents was interesting too. They had lots of observations as they played over the generation about the certain strategies, behaviors, when X happens that varied between english and japanese opponents.

 

[Coronis]

Something about the super mechanics that always annoyed me. When Mega Evolutions were introduced in XY, Masuda explicitly said that the reason that Mega Stones existed was to make sure Mega Pokemon were limited by losing their item slot. A similar story with Z-Moves: It was one time only thing, and once the move was exposed, you effectively had a useless item slot. Not to mention Z-Moves and four Attacks was worse than running a LO, Choice Item, or heck even expert belt with four attacks and a wide movepool. Plus the fact that Z-Moves weren’t strictly used Offensively: Z-Trick Room and Haze were great ways to play around countermeasures like Taunt and Imprison.

Which I always found it bizzare from a design and balance perspective that Dynamax and Teraastalization never allowed the item slot to be sacrificed. Especially in the former's case, since one reason why Dynamax was seen as so uncompetitive was not just the unpredictability, but the absurd combos like Weakness Policy, Life Orb, and Scope Lens for Togekiss's case. If there was an item slot, not only would those unpredictablility be significantly reduced but it would ensure those absurd combos would exist.

I'm guessing GF is more keen on trying more unpredictable mechanics is because they know that VGC is Bo3 and unpredictable mechanics are less unpredictable when you have matches to fall back on as well as the new open team sheet ruleset ruining surprise strategies. But still that doesn't take in account Battlespot Singles, the official cartridge ladder, since that meta is also hosted by GF and has a huge portion of the Japanese playerbase, and Dynamax was significantly harder to handle in 3v3 compared to VGC from my understanding .

A reason for this may be that whilst Mega Evolution was limited to certain Pokemon, Dynamax and Terastalization can be applied to any member of the team.

 

[Sonikku A]

Tera also is balanced by the fact
-Becoming the type means no dual resist, nor is it undone mid battle besides dying
-Tera Blast isn't broken, but a good answer to removing Hidden Power given it can change if phys or not
-You can easily function without it

 

[Pikachu315111]

My immediate thought is the Rotom forms, because the Starmobiles feel like the same concept (a machine-related Pokemon with multiple type-varied forms based on what kind of machine it's actually inhabiting), just not actually obtainable like the Rotoms are. Even then though they change things much more drastically since they alter type, ability, share a modified signature move (Torque), and more dramatically alter their stats than the Rotom forms.

The main difference here is that Rotom is possessing a device which they're able to physically alter, animate, and manipulate. While some devices seem to have a special trait about that which Rotom is able to adapt to and replace its Ghost-type with, at the end of the day it's still just Rotom possessing the device.

Meanwhile the Revavrooms which are the basis of the Starmobiles are heavily modified and is implied takes a lot of effort (and money) to achieve. If it wasn't for Ortega coming from a rich family the Starmobiles wouldn't exist, not to mention Starmobiles also need two Varoom's on either side to act as auxiliary hind wheels and the energy produced from Charcadet evolving which likely takes a Fire Specialist like Mela to be able to achieve enough power. Revavroom is now an engine to a special chassis which has it's own Type, stats, and Signature Move; it's no longer just itself.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

The stat differences between male and female Nidos are consistent across the board. Males have 9 less HP and 10 less Defense, while females have 9 less Speed and 10 less Attack. Additionally, the fully evolved forms have 10 less Special Defense for Nidoking and 10 less Special Attack for Nidoqueen.

The one exception to this symmetry is male Nidoran, who has 12 less Defense than female Nidoran. For some reason, male Nidoran has a BST two points below female Nidoran, and it's been like this since Gen 1.