(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

Everyone always complains about Charizard and Lucario get special treatment, but there are some other Pokemon that seem to be getting special treatment in terms of making it into a lot of games lately that we should start complaining about:

What the heck is up with the swords of justice?! First they were included in the Crown Tundra as a sidequest, ending with Keldeo, which is all fine and dandy. And then in SV they get paradox analogues; while Keldeo doesn't get a paradox mon, it is still included in the game along with the rest of the swords of justice, while a lot of other mythicals were left out. Fair enough. But now they are all available in the mega dimension DLC, while Celebi and Victini, who weren't included in SV, are still MIA.

Who at GameFreak loves these dumb deer so much that they are getting shoehorned into all these games? Is some designer coming up with Enamorus the only thing that stopped the swords of justice from being included in Legends Arceus?
Or is this GameFreak's way of compensating for a lack of gen 5 remakes?
 
RocketSurgery said:
Everyone always complains about Charizard and Lucario get special treatment, but there are some other Pokemon that seem to be getting special treatment in terms of making it into a lot of games lately that we should start complaining about:

What the heck is up with the swords of justice?! First they were included in the Crown Tundra as a sidequest, ending with Keldeo, which is all fine and dandy. And then in SV they get paradox analogues; while Keldeo doesn't get a paradox mon, it is still included in the game along with the rest of the swords of justice, while a lot of other mythicals were left out. Fair enough. But now they are all available in the mega dimension DLC, while Celebi and Victini, who weren't included in SV, are still MIA.

Who at GameFreak loves these dumb deer so much that they are getting shoehorned into all these games? Is some designer coming up with Enamorus the only thing that stopped the swords of justice from being included in Legends Arceus?
Or is this GameFreak's way of compensating for a lack of gen 5 remakes?
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Honestly if we're going to have the swords all here (and Meloetta) Victini really should have been here just so you could look at all the mythics in and go "oh okay, they wanted all the gen 5, 6 & 7 mythics together in one game." And you gotta bring in the full quartet.

just really awkward it isn't here!
 
RocketSurgery said:
Everyone always complains about Charizard and Lucario get special treatment, but there are some other Pokemon that seem to be getting special treatment in terms of making it into a lot of games lately that we should start complaining about:

What the heck is up with the swords of justice?! First they were included in the Crown Tundra as a sidequest, ending with Keldeo, which is all fine and dandy. And then in SV they get paradox analogues; while Keldeo doesn't get a paradox mon, it is still included in the game along with the rest of the swords of justice, while a lot of other mythicals were left out. Fair enough. But now they are all available in the mega dimension DLC, while Celebi and Victini, who weren't included in SV, are still MIA.

Who at GameFreak loves these dumb deer so much that they are getting shoehorned into all these games? Is some designer coming up with Enamorus the only thing that stopped the swords of justice from being included in Legends Arceus?
Or is this GameFreak's way of compensating for a lack of gen 5 remakes?
Click to expand...
A part of me feels like it’s the devs really wanting to call back to Unova, which is fair given Blueberry academies location, and them going ‘well we don’t have alot of options here’.

The Forces of Nature are officially a quartet so they both can’t be separated and don’t balance out with other trios, let alone their alternate forms, and every other legendary in Unova is either the Tao trio or is a mythical.

The Swords of justice have Keldeo sure, but Keldeos always been this fourth ranger type and is also a mythical further separating him from the three musketeer's.
 
There is also, in the case of Z-A, the cute little thread of “they’re based on a French novel.”

For what it’s worth, I do think the Swords happen to be one of the more splashable sets of Legendary Pokémon, similar to the Kanto birds. Their lore is not especially linked to the history of the Unova region, so they don’t really feel out-of-place outside of Unova like, say, the Johto beasts or the tapu would outside of Johto and Alola.
 
RocketSurgery said:
Everyone always complains about Charizard and Lucario get special treatment, but there are some other Pokemon that seem to be getting special treatment in terms of making it into a lot of games lately that we should start complaining about:

What the heck is up with the swords of justice?! First they were included in the Crown Tundra as a sidequest, ending with Keldeo, which is all fine and dandy. And then in SV they get paradox analogues; while Keldeo doesn't get a paradox mon, it is still included in the game along with the rest of the swords of justice, while a lot of other mythicals were left out. Fair enough. But now they are all available in the mega dimension DLC, while Celebi and Victini, who weren't included in SV, are still MIA.

Who at GameFreak loves these dumb deer so much that they are getting shoehorned into all these games? Is some designer coming up with Enamorus the only thing that stopped the swords of justice from being included in Legends Arceus?
Or is this GameFreak's way of compensating for a lack of gen 5 remakes?
Click to expand...
I think I already talked about this wgen ZA was announced, as much as I love them, this just seems like a product of not planning ahead enough.

In Crown Tundra, Keldeo is a Kelpie and fits perfectly if they wanted to have an old wild Mythical.

In SV, both the Beasts and the Swords are two of the few sub-legend trios that didn't have any kind of special form or were not revisited recently. Picking them as Paradoxes makes sense.

In ZA...I mean, I would argue the Swords should have always been Kalos native, if anything it's a bit of a letdown they were not in the base game to begin with. They fit too well.

It really does seem to me like it's a series of coincidences, not particular favouritism.
 
Esserise said:
I think I complained about this elsewhere on here, but the Swords of Justice also just got a big push in GO as well due to the addition of Resolute Keldeo. I don’t dislike them, but I admit I’m kinda tired of looking at them at this point, lol.
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In "fairness" to Go, they seem to just kind of haphazardly rotate the Legendaries on Raids and the Swords are a good filler set since they're useful in PvE and PvP content without being top of their class for their main type (Fighting). Keldeo by itself wouldn't be egregious since this season is basically making up for the fact it was absent for nearly 5 real-time Years after it debuted on a single Paid Ticket, but dragging the other Musketeers into appearances to match does highlight their repetition in the game and franchise of late.

What I found funny is that they dumped Keldeo's Shiny Masterwork immediately after dropping the F2P Special Research for the regular, as if they don't want to have to do this mon again anytime soon after being prodded for so long to rerun it at all.
 
I'm late to the evasion/accuracy commentary but i 100% agree that if a fight mainly employs stuff like that, its either the devs being extremely lazy or them still not realizing how evasion/accuracy strategies are not forcing the player to engage with some fun new battle dynamic. I think evasion is worse because accuracy can at least force interesting switches, but evasion is just ass!!

Now you may say that evasion has a pretty easy answer: just use moves that never miss. Alright, lets check the number of moves that are coded to never miss:
1765834645839.png


big list, but we clearly see the dynamax elephant in the room. not only that, but a lot of these are status moves that will not actually help you with an evasion boosted opponent ever or just dont exist in the games right now/are legendary signature moves aka will never be useable in the campaign. I will cut the fat, and I'll even be generous and keep some moves that could be used for gimmick combos to beat foes.

1765837055979.png


Wow now isnt that just dogshit ass. Let's group some of these moves together, from most to least useful:
  • Genuine evasion strat destroyers, that either allow you to hit the target no matter what with your normal moveset or just reset all the evasion boosts/inverts them/steals them. Clear smog, psych up, topsy turvy, lock on, toxic (only on poison types). defog too but its slower since its only 1 stage of evasion per use. some of these only work with Stats evasion, and for Weather/ability evasion you need skill swap or roleplay
  • Attacking moves that bypass accuracy and are actually Good. Smart strike, aura sphere, flower trick (better hope this gets de-signatured from meowscarada), false surrender (better hope this gets de-signatured from grimmsnarl), kowtow cleave (better hope-).
  • Set up needed: moves that need proper weather to bypass accuracy. Hurricane, blizzard, thunder. They are all extremely high bp moves so IMO if you can set them up then theyre a really good strat
  • Moves that CAN be genuine strat destroyers but will not work if the cheese is on the last mon, i.e whirlwind and roar. If you dont OHKO it might also be a problem but I believe in you
  • Attacking moves that bypass accuracy and are kinda mid/scale very poorly in the end game. Magical leaf, magnet bomb, aerial ace, disarming voice, shadow punch, shock wave, swift.
  • Fuck minimize in particular: moves that get double accuracy but like... only with minimize. If your opponent is using double dance or anything else then good luck lmfao. Body slam, heat crash, dragon rush, stomp, flying press.
  • Weird gimmicks that only work if you have some very specific combos but hey uuuh thats something right. reflect type to be immune to their moves or also be evasive? pain split can cut off hp enough to make the fight easier if you know what youre doing... maybe... you could also transform and copy THEIR evasion boosts and make it the worst fight ever. or fuck it struggle moment who gives a shit.
So our options here are really bad. Not only are there limited number of moves that are at the high tiers, but their distribution is actually pretty bad. Many signature moves, limited spread or no TMs in general. Psych up is very available but only works for stats. The most available ones start with whirlwind/roar and the low bp, but the latter can be an issue because they scale reaaally bad late game. If you dont have a stab user for some of these they might as well not be viable. The minimize ones are a bit of a joke, most modern evasion strats use double team or abilities. Gimmicks are gimmicks.

SO evasion isnt impossible to beat, but the methods for it are cumbersome at best and straight up bad at worse. The way many of these are set up means that half of your options will not be available (early/mid game will rarely have things like hurricane, blizzard, thunder or moves like toxic, aura sphere, etc while late game power creeps stuff like magical leaf, aerial ace etc, some of the mons that get these moves can be locked in areas after the evasion challenge etc.). Idk man i think all of this goes from "making the player engage with more of the battle system" into "making the player work with some ass tools to play a battle normally instead of relying on rng rolls".

Theres way better ways to force harder battles that make the player think. Evasion is up there with level jumps in the "we couldnt actually come up with a good challenge"
 
Bakugames said:
they should make volt tackle a generic move and give pikachu something like pika-pika-lighting. idk. full mascot power summon five billion pikaclones
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Honestly, at that point, just give it one of the LGPE moves. :mehowth:

The exclusivity lost all sense as soon as Ash's Pikachu dropped the move. Now he's even retired. Enough is enough.
Bakugames said:
I'm late to the evasion/accuracy commentary but i 100% agree that if a fight mainly employs stuff like that, its either the devs being extremely lazy or them still not realizing how evasion/accuracy strategies are not forcing the player to engage with some fun new battle dynamic. I think evasion is worse because accuracy can at least force interesting switches, but evasion is just ass!!

Now you may say that evasion has a pretty easy answer: just use moves that never miss. Alright, lets check the number of moves that are coded to never miss:
View attachment 793794

big list, but we clearly see the dynamax elephant in the room. not only that, but a lot of these are status moves that will not actually help you with an evasion boosted opponent ever or just dont exist in the games right now/are legendary signature moves aka will never be useable in the campaign. I will cut the fat, and I'll even be generous and keep some moves that could be used for gimmick combos to beat foes.

View attachment 793819

Wow now isnt that just dogshit ass. Let's group some of these moves together, from most to least useful:
  • Genuine evasion strat destroyers, that either allow you to hit the target no matter what with your normal moveset or just reset all the evasion boosts/inverts them/steals them. Clear smog, psych up, topsy turvy, lock on, toxic (only on poison types). defog too but its slower since its only 1 stage of evasion per use. some of these only work with Stats evasion, and for Weather/ability evasion you need skill swap or roleplay
  • Attacking moves that bypass accuracy and are actually Good. Smart strike, aura sphere, flower trick (better hope this gets de-signatured from meowscarada), false surrender (better hope this gets de-signatured from grimmsnarl), kowtow cleave (better hope-).
  • Set up needed: moves that need proper weather to bypass accuracy. Hurricane, blizzard, thunder. They are all extremely high bp moves so IMO if you can set them up then theyre a really good strat
  • Moves that CAN be genuine strat destroyers but will not work if the cheese is on the last mon, i.e whirlwind and roar. If you dont OHKO it might also be a problem but I believe in you
  • Attacking moves that bypass accuracy and are kinda mid/scale very poorly in the end game. Magical leaf, magnet bomb, aerial ace, disarming voice, shadow punch, shock wave, swift.
  • Fuck minimize in particular: moves that get double accuracy but like... only with minimize. If your opponent is using double dance or anything else then good luck lmfao. Body slam, heat crash, dragon rush, stomp, flying press.
  • Weird gimmicks that only work if you have some very specific combos but hey uuuh thats something right. reflect type to be immune to their moves or also be evasive? pain split can cut off hp enough to make the fight easier if you know what youre doing... maybe... you could also transform and copy THEIR evasion boosts and make it the worst fight ever. or fuck it struggle moment who gives a shit.
So our options here are really bad. Not only are there limited number of moves that are at the high tiers, but their distribution is actually pretty bad. Many signature moves, limited spread or no TMs in general. Psych up is very available but only works for stats. The most available ones start with whirlwind/roar and the low bp, but the latter can be an issue because they scale reaaally bad late game. If you dont have a stab user for some of these they might as well not be viable. The minimize ones are a bit of a joke, most modern evasion strats use double team or abilities. Gimmicks are gimmicks.

SO evasion isnt impossible to beat, but the methods for it are cumbersome at best and straight up bad at worse. The way many of these are set up means that half of your options will not be available (early/mid game will rarely have things like hurricane, blizzard, thunder or moves like toxic, aura sphere, etc while late game power creeps stuff like magical leaf, aerial ace etc, some of the mons that get these moves can be locked in areas after the evasion challenge etc.). Idk man i think all of this goes from "making the player engage with more of the battle system" into "making the player work with some ass tools to play a battle normally instead of relying on rng rolls".

Theres way better ways to force harder battles that make the player think. Evasion is up there with level jumps in the "we couldnt actually come up with a good challenge"
Click to expand...
Evasion is also as unengaging as it gets when it comes to gameplay.

I wouldn't be opposed to having ways to passively get +1 evasion *at most* and force people to think more before just slapping 120BP/70~85% Accuracy moves as their main STAB.

But let's be real, anyone who defends evasion should record themselves having fun against Stadium 2 Koga first. Double Team spam is just dogshit. In every conceivable way.
 
Volt-Ikazuchi said:
Honestly, at that point, just give it one of the LGPE moves. :mehowth:

The exclusivity lost all sense as soon as Ash's Pikachu dropped the move. Now he's even retired. Enough is enough.
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genuinely would prefer that lol. yeah theyre goofy but man its the cute mascot in a kids game its fineeee. might even make the raichus more viable LOOOL
 
RocketSurgery said:
Everyone always complains about Charizard and Lucario get special treatment, but there are some other Pokemon that seem to be getting special treatment in terms of making it into a lot of games lately that we should start complaining about:

What the heck is up with the swords of justice?! First they were included in the Crown Tundra as a sidequest, ending with Keldeo, which is all fine and dandy. And then in SV they get paradox analogues; while Keldeo doesn't get a paradox mon, it is still included in the game along with the rest of the swords of justice, while a lot of other mythicals were left out. Fair enough. But now they are all available in the mega dimension DLC, while Celebi and Victini, who weren't included in SV, are still MIA.

Who at GameFreak loves these dumb deer so much that they are getting shoehorned into all these games? Is some designer coming up with Enamorus the only thing that stopped the swords of justice from being included in Legends Arceus?
Or is this GameFreak's way of compensating for a lack of gen 5 remakes?
Click to expand...
I can tolerate the Swords of Justice being in the DLC Pokedex because the Four Musketeers is originally a French novel and each member of the Swords of Justice is based on the main characters; Keldeo in particular is based on the fourth musketeer that joins at the end of the story. The former is why they are included. Honestly, one of my biggest gripes of that quartet is that it debuted a gen too early- it would make a lot more sense for them to debut in the region based on France as opposed to NY.

That being said, on a similar note, I'm disappointed that the Legendary Birds aren’t in this game. They were catchable in XY, and Mewtwo was in this game, so its baffling that they aren't. It a shame, because Articuno would have been really solid in ranked thanks to its bulk and ability to hit Dragons and Gyarados for SE damage.
 
DreamPrince said:
I can tolerate the Swords of Justice being in the DLC Pokedex because the Four Musketeers is originally a French novel and each member of the Swords of Justice is based on the main characters; Keldeo in particular is based on the fourth musketeer that joins at the end of the story. The former is why they are included. Honestly, one of my biggest gripes of that quartet is that it debuted a gen too early- it would make a lot more sense for them to debut in the region based on France as opposed to NY.

That being said, on a similar note, I'm disappointed that the Legendary Birds aren’t in this game. They were catchable in XY, and Mewtwo was in this game, so its baffling that they aren't. It a shame, because Articuno would have been really solid in ranked thanks to its bulk and ability to hit Dragons and Gyarados for SE damage.
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Pretty sure the reason the birds aren't in ZA is because ZA, unlike PLA, actually includes all forms of the Pokémon in it, so they'd have had to do something with the Galarian versions.
 
Volt-Ikazuchi said:
Just have them raid Hotel Z-A to try and destroy Taunie's Curry Croissants.
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Or just have them available because Regionals for existing mons but don't make them encounters, like several games do with general Legendaries even after DLC is implemented (SV just did this with a lot of Legendaries and Mythicals even if we count Raids as non-Transfer-only).
 
Not thaaaaat big a deal all things considered, but it's a shame that Z-A just reused some of XY (& ORAS) music rather than provide remixes of them.

Xerneas/Yveltal, Mewtwo (the "general" Legendary theme), Korrina Successor...especially after the remixes we did get were so nice and imo elevated the a game's soundtrack I wasn't otherwise hot on.

Some deeper DLC spoilers in here so...
Reusing Super Ancient Pokemon & Primal Reversion, even though I definitely would have liked it, I'm a little more lenient on since this is ultimately the Kalos revisit. Mega Rayquaza remixing Zinnia's theme helps make up for it.


Anyway meanwhile I think Sinnoh's legendary Pokemon theme is on its 4th or 5th remix, I can't remember if it got one in the Gen 5 era or just reused them.





Also can we please get a dang remix of the Unova Pokemon Legendary theme if we're going to keep reusing the musketeers
 
Replaying BW1 for the first time since Gen 5 was the current competitive format.

Yep, still hate it.

Early-game is an absolute slog. I'll never forgive BW1 for turning a whole gym into part of the tutorial.

Blitzle is genuinely terrible. It's like FRLG Pikachu without the good route matchups and timely STAB upgrade. If it doesn't get going soon, I'm straight up ditching it for Joltik.

Throh is very unique compared to Sawk and Timburr, but...
1766409319365.png

It's likely to pick up as it gets better moves though.

Painwheel Forest's encounter rate is absurd, you can't take 5 steps in tall grass there without getting jumped. Burgh is a whole bitch too.

And turns out the ultimate reward for crossing the forest... Is a Miracle Seed. Just like the one I picked up like, an hour before it. Meanwhile, I could've gotten a Charcoal or a Mystic Water, but I didn't remember because lol over 10 years.

Now onwards to the bridge of good bad 3D flexing!

1766410426965.png

God, I hate Unova. :facepalm:
 
of all the little mysteries and easter eggs of xy that they didn't reference in za, what annoys me the most is this:
IMG_2824.jpeg

we had a mega heatran boss fight. jaune plaza was right there and they didn't put the hyperspace zone in it. they put it about as far away from jaune plaza as you can even be. it's obvious that this was a mistranslation, but it sparked a lot of fan theories back in the day and it would've been an amazing callback even as just a reference to the original japanese line. this would have been so easy to do
 
Watching Chuggaconroy's HeartGold/SoulSilver playthrough, and yesterday's gym with Falkner had a perfect microcosm of both why I hate in-game Accuracy/Evasion strats, and separately how hilariously the AI can stumble on itself.

The Accuracy case was one of the generic trainers spamming Sand Attack on a Geodude, which as he points out means "I'd have to miss 26 times for you to win this" because the damage is so low even while not taking damage. Even with extremity for early game low-numbers, the strat doesn't make it HARDER to beat the opponent, just take longer, since NPCs lack any good means to affect progress besides damaging you vs Players being able to heal, set-up for damage, or make catch attempts in the case of wild Pokemon.

Meanwhile the Falkner fight was funny because they gave him Roost for the remake... which resulted in him spamming heals for 1/8th Poison Damage off the Chikorita while switching in the Geodude to Rock Polish and KO. While not "relevant" to the fight since Geodude wins easy regardless, it's funny to watch him heal chip damage constantly instead of actually attack into the Grass type, since this looks exploitable to feed EXP to another mon like if you're training a Gastly or one of the Primo Egg Mons
 
It's a shame that despite having such cool concepts and designs, Xerneas & Yveltal just feel like they have nothing going on. It's not like they don't have lore, or anything, but it's like.....
Well let's just walk through the box legends

Lugia/Ho-oh: These should on paper be the closest to them, in so far as they have minimal (HGSS) to no (GSC) story importance. But at the same time the entirety of Ecruteak is one of the most prominent aspects of the region and it gets 2 set pieces dedicated to them, one of which is a dungeon for Ho-oh. Ho-oh gets added importance because of the beasts, which extends into Crystal. Lugia also has its own dungeon in the Whirl Islands. HGSS adds more pomp & circumstance with the Kimono Girls and a summoning sequence, and ties it into their original backstory by using you as an example of a strong spirited/hearted trainer.

Suicune: The beasts are required to set loose in all versions of the game, tie directly into the same important moment in history as Ho-oh & Lugia, and Suicune gets a chase around the region in Crystal(/regions in HGSS) and Eusine to "interact" with. Crystal's required to catch it to get to Ho-oh and has a showdown with its own theme. It's not "important" and can be removed (as shown with, well, GS), but considering it wasn't even planned to be a box art legend I think it did pretty good for itself

Kyogre/Groudon: Deeply tied to a Hoenn creation myth, the Orbs are a centerpiece of the evil team plans, they thematically match said plans, you chase them into their resting place and get additional tibdits as you chase them down to sootopolis. I think it's cool that when they're let loose, they do start messing with the weather all over the region it's not just that initial sea route, so they have a direct impact on the world even whiel you're going to them. The entire incident causes Archie & Maxie to realize their plans were terrible mistakes. Emerald adds some versus conflict, ORAS adds some extra story elements with the draconids, the cave carvings, the primal energy, etc. You couldn't easily remove them from their games, the games are absolutely built with them in mind. Cool boss battles in Z-A DLC.

Raqyuaza: RS he's just a mysterious bonus boss with connectionst o the pair. Emerald lets you see the ability to calm the duo down, have to climb its dungeon twice to get it for real. Delta Episode adds a whole thing with the Draconids and Zinnia and its Mega, the sequence of riding it into Space to fight Deoxys is iconic. Even gets a cute send-off in the Z-A DLC in addition to its boss battle.

Dialga/Palkia: The space-time creation myth is extremely important & you encounter elements of it several times, their powers get vaguely showcased on summoning them, they're pivotal to Cyrus plan in a really direct & obvious way, they're summoned atop Spear Pillar which has a bunch of lore significance beyond just being a cool set piece. Direct connection to the Lake Spirits due to the same Myth and how they interact with their powers (& the red chain). Platinum you see why its real real bad for them to be summoned at the same time. Much later down the line, in L:A they take an active role helping the player to stop the other after they go berserk and lose control. Got cool new forms!

Giratina: Just a bonus dungeon and a quasi-forgotten part of the myth in DP. Platinum gives it center stage, stopping things from going sideways but at risk of starting its own mini apocalypse. Neat, very distinct new form & theme song. Its entire domain is very unique even these days. That intro of it leaping for Cyrus is super creepy (& in the DP timelines where we werent around to stop things, it steps in anyway). Very important part of L:A's plot, kick starting the entire thing and being tied to a really iconic modern day fight.

Reshiram/Zekrom: Really important to the region's lore in a different way from Dialga & Palkia. Playing on it is Ghetsis' lynchpin for his plan and N's claim to enacting his rule. They have dedicated dungeon (technically two) complete with multiple cutscenes showcasing them and then you have that big clash of truth/ideals just like the legends at the end.

Kyurem: In BW1 just a mysterious creature with Implications that contradict the local lore about it. BW2 goes deeper into this, giving it more importance and confirming theories, and while it's partially used as a battery for Ghetsis' attack ships it is pretty distinct to Kyurem's power and the fact it can fuse with Reshiram/Zekrom to try reclaiming its original body is again really important and specific to Ghetsis' plot. New theme, cool new forms to go with it. Two versions wow-ee!

Solgaleo/Lunala: I'm just going to say Nebby and move on

Necrozma: Complain all you want about the shift in plotline but if there's one thing you can take to the bank it's that Necrozma has presence. Two boss battles, very climactic arenas, theme songs. Strange parasite that is in pain without its light but also going berserk with too much. The added backstory with Ultra Megalopolis is reflected in, well, the URS and is why Lusamine's madness is turned towards more "altruistic" means. The true origin of Z-Moves. And frankly I think it's cool that after you beat it you find it in Lanakila in an impact crater, clearly exhausted and with a guaranteed capture.

Zacian/Zamazenta: Basically the entire game is spent slowly unraveling their importance to Galar's past and hope to save it again. Considering they aren't even FROM Galar they're very well integrated from the Slumbering Weald, to the statues, the bath, the return trip and of course the big battle against Eternatus (who doesn't get to be part of this discussion but I mean, he's breaking the world apart after going wild so I think his setpieces and 3-part battle "sell" it), plus the post-game story is about helping them out. Hop gets one! You will know the Wolves and the story was made with them in mind.

Koraidon/Miraidon: Our buddies! We have them the entire game showing their silly personalities. Then there's traumatic backstory to parallel Arven's and ties to the Professor, and how this conflicts with the other more cruel raidon. Who has a confirmed kill. The fact they're important to Area Zero as a whole kind of doesn't matter, it's just a footnote, but the pair work regardless as the leads of the game.


but then you've got Xerneas & Yveltal.
You get.....some exposition from a no-name generic NPC in the 7th town. You learn in some files that they were captured off screen to act as a battery. You set them free and Lysandre gets mad about that but then everyone stops caring since we're resolving the actual plot. He fires the weapon anyway since it had enough charge. Speaking with Sycamore in the post game implies that AZ used the legends to power the weapon tback then too, and that's confirmed in Z-A, but it's so easy to overlook that most people don't bring it up.
In Z-A they are.....drawn to the city after the events with Ange. And they could be causing some problems, maybe. Get some extra exposition about how they were caught.
That's it. They don't feel anywhere near as important to the region, they had areas we never get to see or hear if there's anything unique about, and man I dunno. They feel so ancillary that I think you could easily remove them entirely and nothing would really change; the Ultimate Weapon could have just been powered by all the (off screen) pokemon tied to rocks and I don't think anyone would blink twice about it. Removing prior box legends would require a varying amount of extra work (again, Lugia/Ho-oh probably have the least after them, but...) and you'd probably notice their absence more. Their exposition just being delivered by text feels more jarring since at least with other legends do stuff on-screen or have areas where you can see the talk about it had something backing it. AZ, Floette & the Ultimate weapon even had a fancy uniquely styled story sequence...
Z-A doesn't even give them boss fights! Or a remix of their battle theme.

At least Z-A made it up to Zygarde after the kind of awkward showing in Alola since Z got scrapped. Consistent presence, making active moves throughout the story, a cool series of sequences in the climax, a new mega and of course the cool 3-part post-game boss complete with a 3-part new theme. Even a smidge of extra lore about why it was in Alola.
 
R_N said:
It's a shame that despite having such cool concepts and designs, Xerneas & Yveltal just feel like they have nothing going on. It's not like they don't have lore, or anything, but it's like.....
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I’m not making a new observation in saying this, but with XY, they basically took their usual approach to the box mascots and decided to apply it all to the ultimate weapon instead. Even as someone who really likes the story of AZ and the weapon, I will say that I’ve always wondered why they chose to do it that way. Pokémon isn’t exactly the type of series that you’d ever expect to concentrate on the lore about a magical WMD when it could (and always had) conveyed that type of storytelling through an important Pokémon instead.

Like, I suppose I could see it being kind of tricky if they specifically wanted the plot about Team Flare trying to eradicate all other life, and having to make that work with the two-versions format when only one of the two Legendaries has the power to take life, but even if that were the case, the ultimate weapon is still a slightly awkward way to circumvent the issue — from what we can tell, it doesn’t matter which Legendary you use to power it because whether it’s used as a resurrection machine or a weapon is simply decided by who’s using it, but it feels like it should matter… the intiuitive sense would be that if you stick the Life Pokémon in it you get eternal life, while if you stick the Death Pokémon in it you get mass death. But no, it just needs a Pokémon with a lot of life energy, period.
 
Esserise said:
I’m not making a new observation in saying this, but with XY, they basically took their usual approach to the box mascots and decided to apply it all to the ultimate weapon instead. Even as someone who really likes the story of AZ and the weapon, I will say that I’ve always wondered why they chose to do it that way. Pokémon isn’t exactly the type of series that you’d ever expect to concentrate on the lore about a magical WMD when it could (and always had) conveyed that type of storytelling through an important Pokémon instead.
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Meanwhile the Pokemon most associated with the backstory wound up being Floette!

You'd think AZ getting the box legends to power his machine would have come up more than like one line of dialog in the post game (I will assume that surely there is at least one more line and it's jsut not as easily searchable, perhaps its in the flare base files)

Like, I suppose I could see it being kind of tricky if they specifically wanted the plot about Team Flare trying to eradicate all other life, and having to make that work with the two-versions format when only one of the two Legendaries has the power to take life, but even if that were the case, the ultimate weapon is still a slightly awkward way to circumvent the issue — from what we can tell, it doesn’t matter which Legendary you use to power it because whether it’s used as a resurrection machine or a weapon is simply decided by who’s using it, but it feels like it should matter… the intiuitive sense would be that if you stick the Life Pokémon in it you get eternal life, while if you stick the Death Pokémon in it you get mass death. But no, it just needs a Pokémon with a lot of life energy, period.
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On top of that lack of distinction, AZ didn't even get eternal life from the life giving version of the weapon, he got it from the killing version
 
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