Yeah, unfortunately the anime references in Yellow are kind of front-loaded and drop off toward the end of the game. Would've been nice to see an anime-based game that could keep the references going all the way through.
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Pokemon that were more prominent in a generation besides their own
- Thread starter Yung Dramps
- Start date
When I was a kid, I thought Corsola was a Gen 3 Pokémon because of Pacifidlog Town.
(Also, people always forget that Munchlax was a starter in Explorers. I used one as a partner in Sky once, and he was a BEAST.)
(Also, people always forget that Munchlax was a starter in Explorers. I used one as a partner in Sky once, and he was a BEAST.)
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Nobody cared about Paras until the day it chose violence.
This thing was one of the least fondly remembered Gen 1 Pokemon thanks to 26 years of its line being nearly totally unusable in game and in competitive. Now, it finally has an outlet to burn all the rage that quarter century of neglect has caused it. And my god, it's pissed. Pokemon Legends has finally given this Pokemon some notoriety after all this time!
You may need to sit down for this one:
Ditto… Surpassed by Mew in Gen 1 as the top Transformer, didn’t see its golden hour until much later… like 14 years later.
One might have expected Quick Powder (for doubling speed) and Metal Powder (for doubling bulk), to provide it an advantage over Mew in Generation 2, but both were getting rivaled by Spore, Substitute, Thunderwave, Transform Smeargle in Johto’s GSC.
But just like Ditto’s design, the Pokémon itself was finally able to adapt to the situation when it found its place in the meta in Unova‘s BW/B2W2.
A four-generation gap from ”Forgotten” to ”Spoiled Rotton” turned the “anime-good only” meme of 4 generations into the backbone of pure revenge.
And boy, what a difference a clone-of-a-move-into-an-automatic-ability makes.
The surprise-drop (at the time) of the ability, Imposter, came along and gave new life to Ditto, ensuring it could simply pop out into battle, hold Choice Scarf, and punish sweepers with their very own movesets.
It could now check threats that had previously set up, or function as a scout of an entire opponent‘s ability and moveset as a lead, in order to allow you to react accordingly. (Such as switching in a Magic Bouncer if the foe has an Entry Hazard lead that uses Stealth Rocks).
It also served as an ultimate trump card to the weather-war Swift Swim teams that plagued Generation 5. Suddenly, Ditto wasn’t just designed for BW/B2W2, the metagame was designed for Ditto.
Imposter had single-handedly turned seemingly Silly Putty into an improved clone all without any of the item or form change restrictions, of the Pokémon it was turning into might have had.
In its own way, Ditto’s ability to copy an opponent, including Mega forms, was fair: It was a severely limited HP Pokémon, but could come in, copy boosts, abilities, typings and movesets to successfully troll an opponent.
As a side note: Choice Scarf itself deserves an honorable mention for giving Ditto the item necessary for Imposter to be more than a 50% speed—tie gamble.
I dare say: “Ditto improved in a way that hasn’t been seen in any Pokémon since.”
Never has a 1-move, 1-useful-ability Pokemon gone from “Zero”, to “Stop-your-team-from-being-swept Hero”.
It’s ability allows it to now permanently keep up with the offensive power creep of upcoming generations since it’s debut.
Oh, and that meme of “anime-good only” lasted just long enough for us to realize… That was Pikachu!
As for Ditto? It has the ultimate flex: it is a full blown ”2.0” of your team.
Ditto… Surpassed by Mew in Gen 1 as the top Transformer, didn’t see its golden hour until much later… like 14 years later.
One might have expected Quick Powder (for doubling speed) and Metal Powder (for doubling bulk), to provide it an advantage over Mew in Generation 2, but both were getting rivaled by Spore, Substitute, Thunderwave, Transform Smeargle in Johto’s GSC.
But just like Ditto’s design, the Pokémon itself was finally able to adapt to the situation when it found its place in the meta in Unova‘s BW/B2W2.
A four-generation gap from ”Forgotten” to ”Spoiled Rotton” turned the “anime-good only” meme of 4 generations into the backbone of pure revenge.
And boy, what a difference a clone-of-a-move-into-an-automatic-ability makes.
The surprise-drop (at the time) of the ability, Imposter, came along and gave new life to Ditto, ensuring it could simply pop out into battle, hold Choice Scarf, and punish sweepers with their very own movesets.
It could now check threats that had previously set up, or function as a scout of an entire opponent‘s ability and moveset as a lead, in order to allow you to react accordingly. (Such as switching in a Magic Bouncer if the foe has an Entry Hazard lead that uses Stealth Rocks).
It also served as an ultimate trump card to the weather-war Swift Swim teams that plagued Generation 5. Suddenly, Ditto wasn’t just designed for BW/B2W2, the metagame was designed for Ditto.
Imposter had single-handedly turned seemingly Silly Putty into an improved clone all without any of the item or form change restrictions, of the Pokémon it was turning into might have had.
In its own way, Ditto’s ability to copy an opponent, including Mega forms, was fair: It was a severely limited HP Pokémon, but could come in, copy boosts, abilities, typings and movesets to successfully troll an opponent.
As a side note: Choice Scarf itself deserves an honorable mention for giving Ditto the item necessary for Imposter to be more than a 50% speed—tie gamble.
I dare say: “Ditto improved in a way that hasn’t been seen in any Pokémon since.”
Never has a 1-move, 1-useful-ability Pokemon gone from “Zero”, to “Stop-your-team-from-being-swept Hero”.
It’s ability allows it to now permanently keep up with the offensive power creep of upcoming generations since it’s debut.
Oh, and that meme of “anime-good only” lasted just long enough for us to realize… That was Pikachu!
As for Ditto? It has the ultimate flex: it is a full blown ”2.0” of your team.
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I think people rembered it in Gen VI when the Last Of Us came out and everyone realised Parasect is effectively a clicker.
This is an insanely late addendum but I happened to think about this again and realized Clefairy's prominence in Sinnoh might actually have some thematic weight behind it. The Clefable family is famously one of the few normal Pokemon that is explicitly from outer space, which is the main aesthetic of Team Galactic and key to mons like Magnezone and Palkia. In addition it also got a new evolutionary relative after its debut game, which while not new still lets it be at home with the numerous other lines that were newly extended in DPPt.
Clefairy in Gen 4
This is more of an ingame thing than a competitive thingamajig, but...
I'm playing a Platinum Nuzlocke, life is pretty fuckin nice. But while i'm gettin from town to town, region to region, encounter to encounter, level cap to level cap, there's just about always one constant that i see. Eterna's top floor where Jupiter resides, the Game Corner, Idol trainers, the Pokemon Mansion challenge, a member of Professor Rowan's assistant's team, it's like i can't go two seconds without seeing the damn thing, and honestly... i kinda dig it.
Clefairy, and by default, Clefable, have kind of had it rough, to be fair. Rejected as the mascot, bland-as-bread normal type other than being known for spamming metronome that was effectively outdone by chansey, and had its amazing magic guard ability swiped from it. of course, it did finally catch a break with the fairy typing, and eviolite as well i suppose, but other than that, it was down in the dumps for a while.
So, why not a little clefairy appreciation, eh?
While not a particularly obscure mon in Hoenn, I feel like Legends Arceus made them much more notable than before. For starters, one of the first quests of the agme is to catch a Wurmple for a guard - one of which stays in front of the Galaxy Expedition HQ for the entire game and you'll be seeing constantly, and that evolves as you progress through the game, even keeping its shininess.
But Beautifly and Dustox are also some of the most common mons you'll be seeing in the overworld, often paired with fellow butterfly mon Mothim, and they tend to spawn as swams, which kind of makes it hard to take them on early on as you'll have a lot of them throwing powders at you while the others attack
The apple (an overabundance of wurmple family) doesnt fall from the tree (diamond & pearl), certainly.
While not a particularly obscure mon in Hoenn, I feel like Legends Arceus made them much more notable than before. For starters, one of the first quests of the agme is to catch a Wurmple for a guard - one of which stays in front of the Galaxy Expedition HQ for the entire game and you'll be seeing constantly, and that evolves as you progress through the game, even keeping its shininess.
But Beautifly and Dustox are also some of the most common mons you'll be seeing in the overworld, often paired with fellow butterfly mon Mothim, and they tend to spawn as swams, which kind of makes it hard to take them on early on as you'll have a lot of them throwing powders at you while the others attack
Don't forget my favourite grunt, the one who's such a hopeless loser he doesn't even have a Pokemon. I love that guy.
Kricketot is more of Sinnoh's regional bug within Gen 4's roster than Burmy. I wouldn't even call Burmy the regional Bug because Burmy is accessible considerably later in the Sinnoh games than most regional bugs are.
Kricketot is the early Bug because it's available in the first few routes of Sinnoh, and has the extremely early evolution level at Level 10 that most older early game regional bugs do, and Kricketune also has a low BST with stats that make it a good crutch in the early game but cause it to fall off hard later on as the power level of the game rises and your available options increase.
Despite Kricketot and Kricketune being two-stage mons they are absolutely the Gen 4 "regional bug" as far as I'm concerned. Even if Hoenn's bug (Wurmple) shares a lot of ubiquity in Sinnoh.
Come to think of it, they keep doing gimmicks with lepidopteran Pokémon. Wurmple has a split evolution determined by invisible numbers, Burmy has a split evolution determined by gender and form, Vivillon has region-dependent patterns... (Now I'm wondering if anyone drawn fanart of Mothim forms based on the cloaks.)
This is how it breaks down to me:
Gen I/Kanto: Pidgey, (Caterpie/Weedle), Rattata
Gen II/Johto: Hoothoot?, (Ledyba/Spinarak)?, Sentret
Gen III/Hoenn: Taillow, Wurmple, Zigzagoon
Gen IV/Sinnoh: Starly, Kricketot, Bidoof
Gen V/Unova: Pidove, (Sewaddle/Venipede), Patrat
Gen VI/Kalos: Fletchling, Scatterbug, Bunnelby
Gen VII/Alola: Pikipek, Grubbin, Yungoos
Gen VIII/Galar: Rookidee, Blipbug, Skwovet
Hoothoot, Ledyba, and Spinarak have question marks as Pidgey, Caterpie, and Weedle are more likely then them and appear on the same route as they do. Sentret turns out to be more common than Rattata so there's at least that.
Because once you've done a few basic butterflies and moths it kind of begins feeling redundant unless you change it up. The Birds and Normies are at least different animals, but for some reason with the Bugs GF feels they need to keep sticking with larva. They sometimes veer from it like in Gen II and IV, and they have been expanding to other bugs with larval forms aside from lepids. Still, when you have Butterfree, Beautifly, Venomoth and Dustox, any future butterflies and moths kind of need a gimmick to stand out. And luckily lepids are a wide species not only in appearance but also adaptations, and combine that with all the symbolism that has been attributed to them there's a pretty deep well of ideas they can keep pulling from (for better or worse).
I'm sure there has, a quick search on Google should resolve thus...
(A few Google searches later)
... Huh. I couldn't find anything. I've seen suggestions for new Wormadam (and Burmy) Cloaks, Regional Variants, and Mega Evolutions, but no one seemed to have an idea for a Mothim based on the Burmy Cloak they're from. The closest is from that "in-between" evolution project which has three different forms for the in-between evo of Burmy & Mothim, but they all become Mothim. If I had to guess, since Mothim leaves its cloak which is the thing that is different between forms, no one thinks it makes sense that the cloak it previously wore had any effect on it, which is understandable.
Depending on your perspective, I also think
could be counted in Hoenn’s list too. The only other additions I would maybe make would be the regional variants of Rattata and Zigzagoon respectively. Makes me wonder if there would be another one in Paldea, too…
Even though SV aren't out yet, I think we can probably assume Girafarig getting an evolution will make it more prominent in those games, especially considering it never really had any memorable moments in previous games.
I think that new evolutions and forms are kinda cheating. Like yeah, duh, of course that'll make an old mon more prominent. This thread's more about a Pokemon receiving sudden extra exposure despite not really getting anything significant in that regard
Gen 3 Crawdaunt exists. Most forgetable in RS but in Emerald it is at least used by Sydney.
Physical Special split and Adaptability moved it up but the real deal prominence came to be in Gen 6 onwards where Dark Type stops being resisted by Steel and Knock Off getting buffed. Basically it became a frailer version but mildly faster Azumarill and able to slap special moves on its moveset (because it is a hoeen Pokemon).