To save me having to post this in both the ‘little things you like about Pokémon’ thread and the ‘little things that annoy you about Pokémon’ thread:
There’s a mega dragonite.
There’s a mega dragonite.
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Pokémon Presents - Pokémon Day 2025 - Pokemon ZA Info & Pokemon Champions Announced
- Thread starter DHR-107
- Start date
Pokémon Champions doesn't seem to have items, right?
Sorry if this was already discussed in the thread.
Sorry if this was already discussed in the thread.
It does. We were shown a screenshot with a held items button.Pokémon Champions doesn't seem to have items, right?
Sorry if this was already discussed in the thread.
Okay, thanks. I found it odd that no item indicator was shown during team selection, like in the mainline games (they probably just aren’t holding any items).
I think Mega Dragonite is fine and cute, reminds me of a scrapped idea I was floating around in my head. I'd have Mega Dragonite very simillar to non-mega, like this one, but longer and curled up around an orb at all times, mega would control weather using it. Never figured where to put feathered wings and gave up eventually. There's not even a doodle, so I may as well be saying nothing.
Direct was boring otherwise, I don't think it's possible to make mobile game news exciting, even for their active players.
One thing about Z-A that worries me is that game might be too grindy, I mean like, grind for the sake of it. Not sure how to articulate this, though. We'll see how things are at release!
Direct was boring otherwise, I don't think it's possible to make mobile game news exciting, even for their active players.
One thing about Z-A that worries me is that game might be too grindy, I mean like, grind for the sake of it. Not sure how to articulate this, though. We'll see how things are at release!
I think that most of the user base will be driven by the return of Mega Evolutions. It might even be the only platform where those introduced in Legends Z-A can be used.
I understand and agree with everything you've said but I think you're incurring in a pretty common error right here. You said I've been here since Gen I and I've wanted some Dragonite love since then, and this is the basis of your argument as to ask yourself why is it that people is never happy with anything they get, but the problem is most of those individuals aren't the same that you remember from back in the day when you wanted love for Dragonite.
Some of us, who are now in our 30s (and we are, for sure, a minority when it comes to the totality of the Pokémon fanbase), have the privilege to remember things as they actually were, prior to the popularization of the Internet warping and creating trends that have nothing to do with reality. A classic example that always comes to mind is Flygon. Flygon was literally nobody back in RSE. Most kids, who were absolutely blinded -so was I- by powerful Pokémon and 'pseudo-legendaries', were fascinated with Salamence, not only because it was the strongest dragon of the two (not counting Lati@s), but because magazines like the Nintendo Acción surrounded their catch method in mystery -for most of us, discovering where Bagon was wasn't as simple, easy and quick as just looking at it on the Internet-, which further contributed to the mystery of the Pokémon itself as you find yourself asking other dudes 'where did you catch that Pokémon?', a phenomena that Flygon, or should I say Trapinch, never was a part of.
It was in later generations when it started to -retroactively- become basically a meme. 'Oh, no love for Flygon', but back in the day, no one gave a shit about it. It was, for sure, a decent mon loved by some players, but so is every mon, since Pokémon is played by millions, but it wasn't some kind of Pokémon everyone was talking or thinking about. Not at all.
This happens with everything else. The dudes you knew that loved Dragonite aren't there anymore, and a lot of the ones you hear with the hate or the melodrama, as you've described it, started playing in USUM. It is like that. And most of them even actively lie on the Internet and try to enforce their vision of how things are or should be regarding a time they never even lived, or use fake nostalgia to talk about past times that didn't existed for them, because they are 16yo. Why does this happen, tho? I don't know.
Look, I’ve already built up a tolerance for explaining to children every hype cycle that 4chan is not a magical leak land.
I’m not strong enough for a new era of Pokemon speculation where we’re going to repeatedly explain AI LLMs are plagiarism chatbots that mime out human writing the same way one of those speech experiment apes mimic sign language for food.
I am turning 34 in 2 months, what the hell are you generalizing about? Flygon was cool, and it, alongside Absol, got mad publicity for the Jirachi movie.
Is there any information hinting at abilities in Legends Z-A? Imagine no-ability Mega Mawile
No sign of abilities, no.
Possible some, like Mawile or Kangaskhan, might get a "passive" that replicates the ability. That's what they did with Regigigas in L:A and they replicated Cherrim's Flower Gift by making the sunny form increased stats.
Butttt I think the safer guess is just no abilities and only very special exceptoins will get the above treatment.
I think it would keep Multiscale over Inner Focus, we've seen megas like Scizor who keeps the obvious "better" base ability, or even the weather pokemon like Abomasnow and Tyranitar would keep the superior ability. I'd be interested to see if they give Mega Gallade Sharpness over Inner Focus now
We also already seen in previous footage how for example Mega Alakazam didn't activate Trace on megaevolving, so it's safe to say there's not going to be any ability.
I would agree that pokemon that fully depend on them might get a innate mechanic to make up for it, but at same time, Let's Go did not have such thing...
Doesn't help some of these Pokémon Presents is filled with stuff already announced or random PokePark in Japan that only japanese would actually care about, yeah tourism I guess but I don't think that's the actual goal.
The complication here is Multiscale (usually) only working once. If Dragonite needs to switch into an attack, Inner Focus is the better ability by the time it would actually get around to Mega Evolving. Same logic as why Mega Sharpedo is about the only time you would want to trade Speed Boost for Strong Jaw.
I could see Roost sets though, especially if this thing gets more bulk.
Or, another thought. This thing gets No Guard. Gets to be different from Salamence, has so much coverage that have accuracy issues, completely overshadows poor pidgeot, kinda fits the whole "trying to end a battle quickly" theme, and trailer has it using Focus Blast. Probably gets minimal attack and gets a big boost in special, making it a good mixed or pure attacker.
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While we're speculating about its ability, I think Wind Rider could be really interesting - you get the defensive perk of immunity to Blizzard and Icy Wind, and benefit immensely from Tailwind support. It would keep it distinct from either Mega Salamence or Pidgeot, while also making it a potentially powerful set-up sweeper. Granted, Dragonite's always had more of an association with flying than it does with wind or the air per se, but with the emphasis on the wings in its design, I think it'd be thematically fitting enough.
Also on the subject of Mega Dragonite: I love this thing's design so much, man. It's the perfect balance of silly and graceful that's always made Dragonite's design appealing to me, and it does a great job of weaving in aspects of Dragonair. I'm unsurprised by the negative reception that I've seen online - badass designs tend to have much more appeal, and there's been a decade's worth of speculation now about what a Mega Dragonite could look like - but this design is basically everything I could have ever wanted from it.
I think ya'll speculating far too much on a Pokemon you know literally nothing of.
You're thinking of it as if it's "Dragonite with more BST", but we've seen Megas completely change type, stat distribution (es the two Charizards) or even completely flip roles (es Mega Diancie).
Honestly I'd leave that for when we actually have its stats and typing.
(Being a Legends game, the ability itself is not actually something you should consider. As L.A. shown, they can have filler abilityes in the game until they actually become available in a mainline game with abilities)
You're thinking of it as if it's "Dragonite with more BST", but we've seen Megas completely change type, stat distribution (es the two Charizards) or even completely flip roles (es Mega Diancie).
Honestly I'd leave that for when we actually have its stats and typing.
(Being a Legends game, the ability itself is not actually something you should consider. As L.A. shown, they can have filler abilityes in the game until they actually become available in a mainline game with abilities)
Looking through the list of Megas, honestly the only one I really see them doing this for is Kangaskhan. But as we saw in LG, they, uh, can just not do that.
But maybe there being a second hit box feels like a gimmick they'd want to acknowledge now that were in this different battle system.
Well we do have typing already. That information is granted to us just fine.
Champions' approach to battle animations is pretty clearly based on SwSh and BDSP, but they have added a few extra flourishes: in the announcement trailer (1:07), we can see a little bit of follow-through (basically, overshooting an action because of inertia) after Dondozo uses Liquidation against Charizard. Similarly, on the latest trailer (1:23), we can see that Leafeon and Empoleon are knocked back and walk back into place after being hit by Clanging Scales, which as far as I can tell, are animations that don't exist in SV (although Sylveon seems to be using its regular hit animation at an earlier point, so I'm not sure if the animation isn't implemented for every Pokémon or if it's applied on a case-by-case basis). While this probably won't convert any Battle Revolution believers out there, it's a nice touch and way more reasonable than redoing the animations for the entire roster.
Too bad ILCA can't get 3D anime characters right to save their life lol
Thoughts on the presents:
Champions
-I'm glad we got more info on Champions, but needing victory points to recruit and customize mons sounds just as grindy as getting mons in the main game, and has me feeling like the simplification (and actual in-game information) about allocating stat points is something I'd rather just have incorporated into the main games. I imagine GF's perspective is that have cross-platform play with a mobile version will attract new players who don't have a switch (yet), but I hope the monetization baggage that will invariably come with a game that's also on mobile will not be too annoying. At least you can't pay for VP. I hope participating in ranked battles or sending over mons from HOME awards ridiculous amounts of VP so that it's practically a non-issue after a little while of playing.
-Hopefully there are modes like battle tower, factory, and some new things that would otherwise keep getting cut from the main games to make this feel like it's worth it to be a separate game.
-So far no sign of any mons not present in SV or LZA.
LZA
-1.5 years after the game is revealed and we finally have one (1) new mega officially revealed, with just 3 months to go until launch.
-I think mega dragonite's design is fine, I like the little details like its back wings becoming tinier and all teal, and its eyes changing color to match. It's nice it finally got some form love, though it was a missed opportunity last gen to perform the best retcon ever and give dragonite a gigantimax form that looked like the giant dragonite in Mystery at the Lighthouse. (e.g., navy blue, pupil-less eyes).
-The game itself is looking nice on the Switch 2.
-The website notes that Lida's partner is Staryu and Naveen's is Scraggy.
-I find the Rust organization's theming unclear so far. Corbeau's outfit + Arbok + the logo gives off Poison vibes, but then there's pictures of Steelix on the walls, so maybe it's snake vibes, but then there's the big guy with spiky motifs next to Corbeau and a statue of Kingambit, so maybe it's just the generic bad guy dark and poison mons they're going for. In any event, the shot of Corbeau talking makes it seem like he takes issue with how much it's going to cost to revamp Lumiose (and all that money would be better spent on solid gold Kingambit statues?).
TV shows
-Concierge season 2 is coming sooner than I remembered, that's neat.
-I think they mentioned the collab with the Wallace and Grommit studio before, but I'd forgotten about it. Nice to see a teaser I guess.
-Still no sign of the rumored live action Netflix show.
Champions
-I'm glad we got more info on Champions, but needing victory points to recruit and customize mons sounds just as grindy as getting mons in the main game, and has me feeling like the simplification (and actual in-game information) about allocating stat points is something I'd rather just have incorporated into the main games. I imagine GF's perspective is that have cross-platform play with a mobile version will attract new players who don't have a switch (yet), but I hope the monetization baggage that will invariably come with a game that's also on mobile will not be too annoying. At least you can't pay for VP. I hope participating in ranked battles or sending over mons from HOME awards ridiculous amounts of VP so that it's practically a non-issue after a little while of playing.
-Hopefully there are modes like battle tower, factory, and some new things that would otherwise keep getting cut from the main games to make this feel like it's worth it to be a separate game.
-So far no sign of any mons not present in SV or LZA.
LZA
-1.5 years after the game is revealed and we finally have one (1) new mega officially revealed, with just 3 months to go until launch.
-I think mega dragonite's design is fine, I like the little details like its back wings becoming tinier and all teal, and its eyes changing color to match. It's nice it finally got some form love, though it was a missed opportunity last gen to perform the best retcon ever and give dragonite a gigantimax form that looked like the giant dragonite in Mystery at the Lighthouse. (e.g., navy blue, pupil-less eyes).
-The game itself is looking nice on the Switch 2.
-The website notes that Lida's partner is Staryu and Naveen's is Scraggy.
-I find the Rust organization's theming unclear so far. Corbeau's outfit + Arbok + the logo gives off Poison vibes, but then there's pictures of Steelix on the walls, so maybe it's snake vibes, but then there's the big guy with spiky motifs next to Corbeau and a statue of Kingambit, so maybe it's just the generic bad guy dark and poison mons they're going for. In any event, the shot of Corbeau talking makes it seem like he takes issue with how much it's going to cost to revamp Lumiose (and all that money would be better spent on solid gold Kingambit statues?).
TV shows
-Concierge season 2 is coming sooner than I remembered, that's neat.
-I think they mentioned the collab with the Wallace and Grommit studio before, but I'd forgotten about it. Nice to see a teaser I guess.
-Still no sign of the rumored live action Netflix show.
Catching up, but let's be real here, besides the obvious "We got IVs and EVs on a slider now, and here's 4 extra points too" y'all really didn't notice that these are essentially the mint effects?
They're not just yeeting the concept of Nature Mints away, they're integrating it into Champions but cutting the lore. Not an elegant solution, but they did kill IVs, so...
I wish they went with a better font tbh. That one looks like a default, pre-installed, cheap font that they just slapped Italic and Bold to make it look minimally presentable.
Edit: I was wrong, IVs still work as usual.
They're not just yeeting the concept of Nature Mints away, they're integrating it into Champions but cutting the lore. Not an elegant solution, but they did kill IVs, so...
Good point. This looks a little too much like a working build, but we've been burned by this idea before. Still, I believe they'll still make some adjustments to those screens to fit in stuff like Tera Type and explain that the nature changer is effectively just Mints.
I wish they went with a better font tbh. That one looks like a default, pre-installed, cheap font that they just slapped Italic and Bold to make it look minimally presentable.
Edit: I was wrong, IVs still work as usual.
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Maybe its just me and my copium, but hopefully they can update animations as they go, considering this is a live service game. I would love things added later like Health % showing signs of fatigue or falling over, or just hit animations becoming different based on the amount of hp remaining. Just little details to trade for the fact only PvP remains in the game. Plus, phones can definitely handle these animations considering the Titan that Pokémon GO became.
They do explicitly say Corbeau is a Poison specialist. Given Steelix and Kingambit, and the rust title, I'd assume the theme is Poison + Steel