Speaking as someone who still thinks Johto is a pretty solid region overall in spite of its flaws, the Pokémon League in both the originals and the remakes is a complete joke. You've got Will whose only Johto Pokémon is two Xatu and straight-up plagiarises two of Lorelei's Pokémon from last generation, Koga who barely makes use of the Poison-Type's diverse lineup
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- Thread starter antemortem
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Honchkrow isn't in the HGSS Johto dex, so she couldn't have it in the original battle. Only Pokémon that evolve via level, friendship, or knowing a specific move were added to the dex in HGSS. Any item-based evos were not.
It's frustrating because HGSS had such an easy opportunity to fix Lance's team. In HGSS, Lance and Clair are differentiated by their choice of moves: she uses special moves - most obviously Dragon Pulse - while his Pokemon mostly use physical ones, with his signature Dragonite making use of Safeguard in conjunction with Outrage. He makes heavy use of Hyper Beam rather than the more sensible Giga Impact, but that's sort of justified as Hyper Beam is kind of associated with him.
But Outrage was made a tutor move in Platinum, so a bunch of other species became entirely viable options for his team rather than the uninteresting trio of Dragonite. Case in point:
- Meganium - learns Outrage, but also can do its own thing with Safeguard+Petal Dance
- Ampharos - always thought it would have been cool to fight one of these after having saved Amphy. Real wasted opportunity that no boss in Johto had it imo, Surge doesn't even use one in his rematch
- Kangaskhan - a bit out there for Lance, but still
- Kingdra - yes Clair also uses one, but not in the same way and numerous other Champions have used Gym Leaders' signature species
It never bothered me that many Johto important trainers don't use Johto pokémon, this region is way more connected to another one than any other so it makes sense that Kanto pokémon show up lot on the teams besides it being the first sequel and TPC didn't have the standards they would create from gen 3 onwards. I've always found neat that Karen used Vileplume because you can only encounter oddish in Johto at night, Tyranitar never felt right for her because it's the gen's pseudolegendary and those are more appropriate for the gen's Champion.
Agree on the first point. Poliwrath being Chuck's ace, for instance; no notable trainer used Poliwrath in RBY and it being Water-type gave it an interesting matchup against the player's starter - it's a tough fight if you're using Typhlosion. And big agree on Vileplume, it's an underused Pokemon in general and rounds out her team quite nicely.
Re pseudolegendaries though, there's heavy precedent for E4 members and the Champion to both use one at the same time (Drake uses Salamence and Steven uses Metagross in RSORAS, Lance uses Dragonite and Blue uses Tyranitar in FRLG, Nascour uses Metagross and Evice uses Tyranitar in Colosseum, Caitlin uses Metagross and Iris uses Hydreigon in B2W2), or for E4 members to use them while the Champion doesn't (Hassel has a Baxcalibur in ScVi and Molayne has a Metagross in USUM). I don't see what real relevance Tyranitar has to Lance tbh, sure Lance uses dragonish species like Aerodactyl but as I alluded to above, there's a much wider range of species Lance can draw on, whereas Karen has far fewer appropriate Pokemon: the only other Pokemon I'd say fit her flavour are Persian and Sneasel, but the latter is Silver's special Pokemon in GSCHGSS and while the former is fine she may as well use an actual Dark-type if one's available.
actually let's run the numbers
kanto: lance (4th elite) has dragonite. blue doesn't. 1-0.
johto: neither the elites nor lance have tyranitar... lance does have 3 dragonites, so 1-1
hoenn: the region with two late bloomers and, accordingly, drake (4th elite) has salamence and steven (champion) has metagross. in emerald wallace doesn't have any, though. 2-2
sinnoh: cynthia (champion) has garchomp, the elites have no previous late bloomers. 2-3
unova: in BW, hydreigon is actually ghetsis's, so... nobody. B2W2 has iris (champion) with hydreigon, but also grimsley and caitlin (elites) with tyranitar and metagross, but only on rematches. giving this one to iris because hydreigon is always there (and because volcarona is very late bloomer-coded and is alder's signature pokémon and i love volcarona lol). 2-4
kalos: diantha (champion) has goodra, the elites have no previous late bloomers. 2-5
alola: no elites, prof kukui or hau have ANY late bloomer, which is a disappointment for a region with so many available late bloomers, even if kommo-o was a totem battle. 2-5
galar: leon (champion) has dragapult. but also, raihan (last cup battle before leon) has goodra. 3-6
paldea: hassel (4th elite) has baxcalibur from the main game. geeta only gets a dragapult by indigo disk after many allegations of sucking ass. 4-6
unova-blueberry academy: amarys (elite) has a metagross, drayton (elite and former champion) has a dragonite. the champion has a dragonite, too, which... there Are other late bloomers out there... anyway, 6-7. makes sense for a post-game elite four.
i'd say they are equally likely to be associated with the last elite four member (specially in games in which the elite four battling order is fixed) as they are with the champion.
At the time you only had Lance to compare to and the player only discovered that he wasn't the last boss after defeating him but I will concede that pseudolegendaries are not only final boss pokémon. I still think that Tyranitar is as much a Dark type as Gyarados is a Flying type and both Lance and Karen could go without it.
Feels like gen1 thought it would be funny to replace dragon Type With flying see: gyarados, charizard, aerodactyl. Then in gen8 dragons are such as applin and wtf does that mean?!
Long story short is that back in Gen 1, Dragon as a type was designed to be highly advanced as a type because it resists all four of the "basic elemental" types, Grass, Fire, Water, and Electric. Three being starter types and another being another early type.
The result is that the type was only assigned to one evolutionary line, whose final form Dragonite was expressly designed as a boss fight alongside its pre-evo Dragonair, to basically resist all basic tier "magic" attacks using its type and bulk and its high Attack to fire powerful Hyper Beams, being super powerful with a severe Ice weakness as its Achilles heel. Dragonite in terms of using it is the original "late bloomer" who takes three stage evolution by traditional level up to the logical extreme with Slow EXP rate, high evo levels, and the end result being the second strongest Pokemon in Gen 1 besides Mewtwo.
The other mons are dragons conceptually in flavor but gameplay wise were not designed to be anywhere near Dragonite's particular function in the original RBY.
Considering half of the reason Steel exists was to nerf Psychic... I doubt they'd do this.
Now, if they want to retool the move Kinesis to have an effect like this, or introduce an entirely new move in the same vein as Freeze-Dry, that could be reasonable.
Psychic is unfortunately "balanced" by having a rather disproportionate amount of legendary Pokémon with the typing, which tends to make the weaker Psychic types struggle.
...I'm also realizing that a good number of Psychic Pokémon have extremely good Abilities/signature moves to buff them up. Maybe I'm just having tunnel vision, but there aren't a lot of truly bad Psychic lines.
You hit on something I was thinking about a while ago: it'd be an incredibly interesting mechanical shakeup if some (not all) types were given one move or ability which gave them an advantage against a type they're normally poorly matched against.
- As you say, Kinesis could be retooled to be effective against Steel
- In a similar vein, Poison is normally ineffective against Steel, but certain metals can be weakened or dissolved with acid so perhaps Acid or Acid Spray could be repurposed
- Sky Uppercut sadly got cut, but totally should have been this against Flying-types
- A Fire-type move which is super-effective against Water could be a fun idea: perhaps a sort of reverse Burn Up in which the user spouts a flame so hot that it evaporates the foe's Water-type and/or renders them incapable of using Water moves
100%.and then psychic resists fairy so a) it's defensive profile improves too and b) psychic /fairy doesn't become too oppressive as coverage since there's a lot of mons with those two types in their movepool. it's the first thing i'd change on the type table
Sorry to be buzzkill, as I'm debunking something I've seen various content creators obsess over and do a lot, but the idea of determining who the strongest trainer is in Pokémon canon is ridiculous as Pokémon's canon is extremely loose. Much more loose than what at least 95% or more of Pokémon fans want to believe. It spans throughout an entire multiverse of infinite universes and infinite different possibilities, including each of our own personal experiences in our own save files as their own individual universes each. The latter was confirmed by an interview with Satoshi Tajiri in 1997 and an Entralink feature in Pokémon Black and White. The former was confirmed by the combination of:
1) Celestic Town lore: Stating that Palkia not only embodies all the space of a universe, but the material space of all dimensions
2) Ultra Space: Being a dimension outside the planes of a universe, connecting countless amounts of wormholes that mostly all lead to different universes. This is essentially the multiverse and because it links all the Pokémon universes together from a dimension outside them, Palkia embodies the Pokémon multiverse, with Ultra Space merely being an extension of Palkia itself.
3) An interview with Junichi Masuda, explaining that space-time in Pokémon is infinite. This by extension means Ultra Space is infinite, confirming the Pokémon multiverse is infinite in size.
The latter is also backed up by:
1) The TCG backing up the concept of infinite time and infinite space within Pokémon
2) Palkia and Dialga being able to create a universe in the anime and nearly doing so in the games, indicating how they are both beyond the limits of just a universe.
3) Pokémon Masters EX (a game that is confirmed to cautiously have only things mainline game characters would do and say) having Zinnia explicitly state that Pokémon has infinite universes.
When many people try to determine who the most powerful trainer is, they ignore trainers who are actually canon but may not seem like it. Everything in the canon is canon, but people tend to nitpick what's canon and not canon within the canon despite that. For example, All Secret Base and Super Secret Base trainers are canon (we can all be canon within someone's own game in Pokémon), all Battle Facility trainers and trainers we battle online are canon, every character from games whose existence is recognized by main series, TCG, or anime is canon, including Mysterial for example. I've seen people try to frame each as these as "non-canon" to the series. That's not how Pokémon's canon works. Even every trade, transfer, and event distributed in the Pokémon series is canon in Pokémon. Every single one of our personal experiences are officially recognized within the series.
I am not saying everything Pokémon is canon. The official canon in Pokémon consists of the main series games, the anime, the Trading Card Game, and the manga. The games officially recognize the existence of Pokémon anime and TCG universes through media from said universes of showing up in the games in some way, usually in the form of an event, meaning they are all canon to each other. Any piece of media that can be recognized by the canon, is canon itself, as canon is aware of their existence. This includes the movies, a handful of spinoffs such as Pokémon Ranger and Pokémon Conquest, and side series games that allow you to directly transfer Pokémon to or from main series games, like GO, Colosseum, Battle Revolution, and XD. Anything that's not recognized by canon, is what's not confirmed to be canon. Correct me if this is false but Pokémon Mystery Dungeon has not been recognized by any sort of official canon media for Pokémon, and is thus not confirmed to be canon, but Nobunaga and his Shiny Rayquaza from Pokémon Conquest were featured in both the mainline games and the TCG, confirming the existence of Pokémon Conquest universes to canon, and making Pokémon Conquest canon.
What does this mean for trainers?
Your friend Jimmy down the street from you could be the world's most powerful trainer in canon. Maybe it could also be a consistent VGC player, like WolfeyVGC. Want to measure just NPCs? There is a guy in Pokémon Battle Revolution with Palkia, Kyogre, Mewtwo, and Lugia, but also players who are made as NPCs in other people's games in Secret Bases or Super Secret Bases. There's a random NPC in Sun and Moon's Malie City Pokémon Center who claimed they got wonder traded a Mewtwo, similar to how Super Secret Base trainers in ORAS occasionally tell you the latest Pokémon they received from Wonder Trades that actually happen.
Champions can't really be pointed out here either, as an NPC in the ORAS Battle Institute realizes then states that there are many trainers across the world who are more powerful than Champions, as being more powerful than Champions is the requirement for trying out the Institute. Anyone could be the best, especially if they have the best Pokémon, but it's likely never a notable trainer within the story of a Pokémon game, especially since they've historically had teams lacking for what is realistically possible in Pokémon games, and random battle facility trainers show this off.
1) Celestic Town lore: Stating that Palkia not only embodies all the space of a universe, but the material space of all dimensions
2) Ultra Space: Being a dimension outside the planes of a universe, connecting countless amounts of wormholes that mostly all lead to different universes. This is essentially the multiverse and because it links all the Pokémon universes together from a dimension outside them, Palkia embodies the Pokémon multiverse, with Ultra Space merely being an extension of Palkia itself.
3) An interview with Junichi Masuda, explaining that space-time in Pokémon is infinite. This by extension means Ultra Space is infinite, confirming the Pokémon multiverse is infinite in size.
The latter is also backed up by:
1) The TCG backing up the concept of infinite time and infinite space within Pokémon
2) Palkia and Dialga being able to create a universe in the anime and nearly doing so in the games, indicating how they are both beyond the limits of just a universe.
3) Pokémon Masters EX (a game that is confirmed to cautiously have only things mainline game characters would do and say) having Zinnia explicitly state that Pokémon has infinite universes.
When many people try to determine who the most powerful trainer is, they ignore trainers who are actually canon but may not seem like it. Everything in the canon is canon, but people tend to nitpick what's canon and not canon within the canon despite that. For example, All Secret Base and Super Secret Base trainers are canon (we can all be canon within someone's own game in Pokémon), all Battle Facility trainers and trainers we battle online are canon, every character from games whose existence is recognized by main series, TCG, or anime is canon, including Mysterial for example. I've seen people try to frame each as these as "non-canon" to the series. That's not how Pokémon's canon works. Even every trade, transfer, and event distributed in the Pokémon series is canon in Pokémon. Every single one of our personal experiences are officially recognized within the series.
I am not saying everything Pokémon is canon. The official canon in Pokémon consists of the main series games, the anime, the Trading Card Game, and the manga. The games officially recognize the existence of Pokémon anime and TCG universes through media from said universes of showing up in the games in some way, usually in the form of an event, meaning they are all canon to each other. Any piece of media that can be recognized by the canon, is canon itself, as canon is aware of their existence. This includes the movies, a handful of spinoffs such as Pokémon Ranger and Pokémon Conquest, and side series games that allow you to directly transfer Pokémon to or from main series games, like GO, Colosseum, Battle Revolution, and XD. Anything that's not recognized by canon, is what's not confirmed to be canon. Correct me if this is false but Pokémon Mystery Dungeon has not been recognized by any sort of official canon media for Pokémon, and is thus not confirmed to be canon, but Nobunaga and his Shiny Rayquaza from Pokémon Conquest were featured in both the mainline games and the TCG, confirming the existence of Pokémon Conquest universes to canon, and making Pokémon Conquest canon.
What does this mean for trainers?
Your friend Jimmy down the street from you could be the world's most powerful trainer in canon. Maybe it could also be a consistent VGC player, like WolfeyVGC. Want to measure just NPCs? There is a guy in Pokémon Battle Revolution with Palkia, Kyogre, Mewtwo, and Lugia, but also players who are made as NPCs in other people's games in Secret Bases or Super Secret Bases. There's a random NPC in Sun and Moon's Malie City Pokémon Center who claimed they got wonder traded a Mewtwo, similar to how Super Secret Base trainers in ORAS occasionally tell you the latest Pokémon they received from Wonder Trades that actually happen.
Champions can't really be pointed out here either, as an NPC in the ORAS Battle Institute realizes then states that there are many trainers across the world who are more powerful than Champions, as being more powerful than Champions is the requirement for trying out the Institute. Anyone could be the best, especially if they have the best Pokémon, but it's likely never a notable trainer within the story of a Pokémon game, especially since they've historically had teams lacking for what is realistically possible in Pokémon games, and random battle facility trainers show this off.
To the "type moves above"...
This is all fine and dandy but did you forget what happened that one time they made a move that flips one of its type affinities?
No? Let me tell you, Freeze Dry broke or almost broke several of the pokemon that learn it, specifically because one the typical switch ins of ice type, water types, suddently aren't safe anymore (and in fact, with how many water + iceweak pokemon there are, the amount of stuff Freeze Dry hits supereffectively is quite insane).
So please no, we don't need moves that "change the type chart". Messing with the game systems often proves problematic, expecially longterm, unless balanced by very heavy negatives, see Freeze Dry or also Urshifu basically breaking the entire game by virtue of negating one of the most important aspects of the game ("clicking protect is always safe the first time").
This is all fine and dandy but did you forget what happened that one time they made a move that flips one of its type affinities?
No? Let me tell you, Freeze Dry broke or almost broke several of the pokemon that learn it, specifically because one the typical switch ins of ice type, water types, suddently aren't safe anymore (and in fact, with how many water + iceweak pokemon there are, the amount of stuff Freeze Dry hits supereffectively is quite insane).
So please no, we don't need moves that "change the type chart". Messing with the game systems often proves problematic, expecially longterm, unless balanced by very heavy negatives, see Freeze Dry or also Urshifu basically breaking the entire game by virtue of negating one of the most important aspects of the game ("clicking protect is always safe the first time").
I would be ok with this because Psychic was hit too hard with nerfs in gen 2. Dark being immune to and hitting it super-effictively and Steel resisting it was too much. Even the special split was a nerf even if it wasn't done to specifically weaken Psychic.
also to be fair the steel type didn't need to be as defensively powerful as it is. the fact it has so many resistances, even now that it lost two, puts too much of a premium on super effective or even neutral coverage for them, which also happen to be types that are already offensively very proficient even without covering steel. it would be fine if steel lost the resistance to psychic and maybe even one more.
No, it wouldn't, because Steel types have the whole "mass of defensive resists while being a terrible type offensively".
If it didn't hit fairy supereffectively, steel types wouldn't even bother running their stabs.
If you want to remove Steel resists, you have to make it stronger offensively. Which would just worsen the problem.
On top of it, Steel's array of resistance is balanced by the fact it's weak to three of the most common offensive types when it comes VGC (and honestly, Smogon too): fire, fighting, ground. These are pretty steep prices to pay when Close Combat and Earthquake are two of the most widely distributed moves of the game (without considering that there's a very specific Fighting Type that has been a issue for two generations and the foreseeable future, on top of a very specific Ground type that has been on the hate-list of both Smogon and VGC players for last decade, and last but not least, a certain feline fire type that's also the nightmare of every VGC player).
So no, please, stop trying to fuck with the type chart. It's fine as is. Don't mess over the already precarious balance of this game to try and turn it into checkers.
If it didn't hit fairy supereffectively, steel types wouldn't even bother running their stabs.
If you want to remove Steel resists, you have to make it stronger offensively. Which would just worsen the problem.
On top of it, Steel's array of resistance is balanced by the fact it's weak to three of the most common offensive types when it comes VGC (and honestly, Smogon too): fire, fighting, ground. These are pretty steep prices to pay when Close Combat and Earthquake are two of the most widely distributed moves of the game (without considering that there's a very specific Fighting Type that has been a issue for two generations and the foreseeable future, on top of a very specific Ground type that has been on the hate-list of both Smogon and VGC players for last decade, and last but not least, a certain feline fire type that's also the nightmare of every VGC player).
So no, please, stop trying to fuck with the type chart. It's fine as is. Don't mess over the already precarious balance of this game to try and turn it into checkers.
I think this works better when it's a gimmick of a specific mon (like Corrosion or Salt Cure) rather than something that can show up frequently. At least Kinesis is already locked to one line?
The thing about Lance in GSC is that they really put themselves in a corner, flavor-wise. Because there needs to be a champion. But it can't be Red, he's ultra-postgame. And Blue lost the job to Red, so it can't be him. And Silver is explicitly not the sort of person to take on the Gym Challenge. So who do they make the final fight of the main story? It's either a complete rando, or promote a known trainer. And a rando(even if they gave Rando Lance's Lake of Rage interactions) would probably feel random. So they chose promotion, but that constrained them to existing trainers, with RBY-style limits on their teams and design. Making any good Champion given that would be difficult.
(That said, it should have been possible to do SOMETHING better than Lance.)
(That said, it should have been possible to do SOMETHING better than Lance.)
I think having a small handful of moves that subvert the type chart could be a good thing. Freeze-Dry is a move that does this with a type that's already strong offensively, and it comes at a notable power cut (it's still a broken move, mind you). Psychic is not a strong type offensively (though removing one of its usual resistances does bump it up a notch), and if a move of that type was made to hit Steel super-effectively, I can't imagine it would have particularly wide distribution, as Psychic as a type covers a rather wide spectrum of concepts. I guess the only two resists left after Steel would be covered by Bug, which could be problem, but--oh wait, Signal Beam doesn't exist anymore, it's fine.
In all seriousness, a move like that could be cool as a signature move for the Abra line. And I want to chime in that I'm appalled that Acid/Acid Spray don't hit Steel types super-effectively QuentinQuonce. I can't see an interaction like that breaking the moves because of low BP (Acid Spray might be a little touchy because of its strong secondary effect). I'd also be down for Sky Uppercut to nail Flying types, because that move is cool, and Fighting still has four other resistances and one immunity to contend with.
I do understand your concern, Worldie, but the idea of a move like that is such a good one that it's a shame to let it only sit on one attack. (Urshifu is its own beast, and perhaps Unseen Fist being broken is partially the fault of Protect being too necessary in Doubles, as well as its signature moves bypassing the format's easiest check to physical attackers).
I like to assume that each of the Johto leaders' main Pokémon has some kind of reference to them or something about their character:
- The first Gym Leader's Pidgeotto forms a fun parallel with the final Gym Leader's main Pokémon being a Pidgeot
- Scyther fits well for someone living in Johto researching Bug-Types and possibly their evolutions
- Miltank could be a reference to her family's history with MooMoo Milk, of all things
- Gengar (and other Ghosts) fit thematically for someone interested in the Burned Tower legends
- Poliwrath is a Water-Type, and Cianwood City... well, just look at it
- Steelix evolved from a Rock-Type, much like Jasmine changed her type specialty
- Piloswine aesthetically fits Pryce the best of the available options, and both him and its Gen 4 evolution are both known for being old
- If Lance gets sky-themed dragons, Clair can have sea-themed dragons such as Kingdra
In Gale of Darkness, there's also Salamence who is used by Eldes, and Dragonite, who is treated as the game's final Shadow Pokémon for all intents and purposes. Most of you probably already knew this, but I find it neat how between the two games all four psuedos at the time were a Shadow Pokémon used by a late-game opponent. :)
Edit: Where did all these posts before mine come from just now? My notifications didn't mention any of them lol
and then with gen 3 they found out that, yes, they are capable of developing a whole new character to be the champion in a satisfactory manner. with hindsight on i think a new character would have been a better johto champion, but i do agree that they probably felt unsure of that in gen 2 development (which plays it safe with characters in general).
Is this a commonly held view? I'd be super interested to hear your reasoning, since I've always assumed Silver was earning Gym Badges. He never outright says he's challenging Gyms, but I feel like it's implied a couple of times. As soon as you enter Olivine City he comes out of Jasmine's Gym, annoyed that she's abandoned her post to take care of Amphy, and he's pretty clearly on his way to challenge the Elite Four when you meet him in Victory Road. Plus, while I know the games play fast and loose with NPCs and player-required HMs, he's confirmed to have crossed over to Cianwood and scaled Tohjo Falls at least.
Regardless, I agree that he's still not a viable candidate for Champion the way Blue was, at least with his existing characterisation at the point in the story where he would hypothetically be Champ.
They didn't change up teams in the main story, only rematches.
That's a HGSS thing, you never interact with Silver without fighting him in gen 2, save for when he's staring at Elm's lab before he steals his starter.
That's... not even close to true! The Olivine cutscene is there back in Gen 2, as I described. He also has non-battle appearances in the Sprout Tower and the Mahogany hideout in GSC, just as he does in HGSS. I dig the confidence, though!