Do we underestimate Nintendo?

Yesterday when I was at NOA I bought Nintendo's Ultimate Pokedex guide. Not that I'm gonna use it at all, I just like being complete with all my guides for the Pokemon games.

Anyways. In their "advanced battling" section they had a sample 3 vs 3 team. And it looked like this

Garchomp @ yache berry
-Swords Dance
-Earthquake
-Stone Edge
-Dragon Claw

Magnezone @ Shuca berry
-Thunderbolt
-Flash Cannon
-Magnet Rise
-Thunder Wave

Gengar @ Wide lens
-Shadow Ball
-Thunderbolt
-Focus Blast
-Hypnosis

They didn't list EVs or anything. But they did talk about them in that section, they just didn't go into great detail, I'm guessing they didn't want to confuse the casual gamer with something that complex. They also included stuff about subpunching, marvel scale+sleep talk, walls, sweepers, supporters etc

And then there's the electivire from PBR with an almost standard set (or standard since some people use adamant with tpunch instead of lonely and tbolt)

I was just kinda shocked that they made a decent team in that guide...I thought they would suck at that since their games are marketed towards kids. What do you think?
 
They are very aware to the competitive side of battling,its so clear if you look at their pokemon and moveset choices in various parts of the games.
 
I have a feeling that like anything they have their screw ups and high points. The main problem is that you are looking in a laymans guide and you expect them to talk in depth about EV's and other things for advanced gamers.

Nintendo probably IS better than you think, they just have to appeal to the masses as they are the ones who ultimately prove the paycheck.
 
The person who writ it was probably into competitive or something... I doubt they would have researched competitive just for one guide...
 
Does a Shuca Berry help Magnezone survive an EQ?

Let's see...a Level 100 Metagross, neutral nature (inserting -1 Attack stage since I don't think the berries work yet)...does 80.43% - 94.66% to Magnezone. Adamant nature (and I think most do pack Adamant) does 127.76% - 150.53%. Regular Garchomp (neutral nature) does 116%...
 
Lol, this is much of an improvement comparing to the last moveset guide I saw by Nintendo.

For god's sake, they suggested Dragonbreath on STEELIX.
 
Lol, this is much of an improvement comparing to the last moveset guide I saw by Nintendo.

For god's sake, they suggested Dragonbreath on STEELIX.

lol, They have a steelix like that in the battle factory. Dragonbreath is for paralysis I think. Still a pretty terrible move for it though.
 
Looking at the moves of the Pokemon, Nintendo does know the competitive side of battling quite well. Although, the items and lack of specific training does worry me. Nintendo should be aware of the competitive side of battling, but I guess they're more focused on the casual gameplay rather than competitive.
 
Nintendo knows the competitive side pretty well. One look at the topics they floated on the Pokemon board at NSider would have told you that. I know some Smogon members have had good conversations with NOA employees at JAA too.

I got the guide with my Nintendo Power subscription and it'd be great if it weren't for one really annoying point: the base stats are not represented numerically but only as a rating out of 5 or something. Makes it useless =/

Anyway, I remember the first guide for RBY said Mewtwo's recommended moveset was "Amnesia, Recover, Psychic, and Blizzard". I'd say that wasn't half bad for kids like me who wanted to own up Pokemon Stadium's Prime Cup =)
 
What is the ISBN for Nintendo's Competitive Battling book? The complete title? I can't find it by your description OP.

Edit: Nvm, found it through Amazon.
 
I honestly haven't looked through many of the official guides, so I can't say much there.

Nintendo's treatment of the battle tower kinda destroyed my respect for them as people who know what competitive play is about, though. I can understand some things, since they wouldn't have had a whole lot of time to test. But c'mon...Phione is banned? Wobbuffet isn't? No Sleep Clause?

It's true that I'm talking about the battle tower and not actual competitive play, but that's supposed to be the highest level of challenge in-game, and it doesn't really resemble competitive play much.
 
I'm sure they don't want to print out stuff that's too hardcore too frequently. It would take the fun out of the game for the many players who don't desire to enter "hardcore competition."

The whole IV training system also leaves a bad taste in the mouth life-lesson wise. If I were a parent, I wouldn't want my children caught up in a game that encourages thinking that

"You are what you are the moment you're born, and those not born with the right stuff are trash."

Which is essentially the whole mind set of breedng and SRing. Yup, better if the general non-competitive community doesn't know about the IV system. Better for kids to think that if they strive and work hard like Ash and Pikachu they can make their dreams come true.
 
The whole IV training system also leaves a bad taste in the mouth life-lesson wise. If I were a parent, I wouldn't want my children caught up in a game that encourages thinking that

"You are what you are the moment you're born, and those not born with the right stuff are trash."

Which is essentially the whole mind set of breedng and SRing. Yup, better if the general non-competitive community doesn't know about the IV system. Better for kids to think that if they strive and work hard like Ash and Pikachu they can make their dreams come true.

I agree with this, too. I think Nintendo's intention behind natures was a "each pokemon is good at different things" sort of lesson, but all it does is make it even more of a pain to get actual good, competitive pokemon. And IV's completely destroy any good intentions they might've had with this, since having a low IV in one stat doesn't mean you're going to have a high IV in another.

Ah well, they can have fun playing with their Brave Alakazams and Mild Skarms.
 
If you noticed the PBR Electivire's moveset you'd know Nintendo is aware of competitive battling
 
This kinda makes me wonder why they put in useless slabs of nonsense like rotom and friends unless they were thinking of tiers as well...
 
I doubt Nintendo knew what they were doing with RBY (I mean come on, Amesia pretty much breaks the game). But they started learning and adding things to make it more difficult competetively, but casual gamers won't mind. Examples are the hold items of GSC, the natures and IVs in RSE and the Att/SpA split in DP. None of those things really affect non-competetive gameplay, but completely screw over the competetive metagame
 
Rotom actually seemed to me like NOA wanted a good UU pokemon, in a sense. They probably try to balance the fun, casual players of pokemon with new and interesting looking pokemon (that probably suck) along with tough pokemon that are bound to be OU and such. An example is Salamence, who casual players think is cool, and serious players would think is great due to Specs sets and the like, along with great stats.

This guide did surprise me, though, but NOA was aware of the ubers metagame too in JAA, because they banned Lefties on Wobbuffet, most likely knowing of the stall wars that can occur.
 
Lol, this is much of an improvement comparing to the last moveset guide I saw by Nintendo.

Remember the meat of this guide is the National Pokedex. The battling section was only about 10 pages.

For god's sake, they suggested Dragonbreath on STEELIX.

lol are you serious? What guide was that? Was it prima? Because prima's suggested some pretty sucky movesets according to some of the previous guides I have by them.

I got the guide with my Nintendo Power subscription and it'd be great if it weren't for one really annoying point: the base stats are not represented numerically but only as a rating out of 5 or something. Makes it useless =/

Yeah I know. 3/5 defense for Cresselia is...messed up. And how'd Deoxys-L get 4/5 for both defences. They're freakin base 160. And how Giratina didn't get 5/5 for HP I'll never know, same with Garchomp getting only 4/5 for attack. It looks as though the stat section was very quickly done since the number out of 5 corresponding with the actual base stat is very inconsistent.
 
Very true. Nintendo wants little kids to have a lot of fun. But they do it in a stupid way.

I actually got owned by my brother (who is a noob) because he raped my Bliss with a focus punch off an alakazam (!!!!WTF!!!!)
 
This kinda makes me wonder why they put in useless slabs of nonsense like rotom and friends unless they were thinking of tiers as well...

Well I think they make it pretty clear that not every Pokemon is meant to be competitive at the end of the game. I would assume that's why the Pokemon selection at the beginning of the game is always similar (Rattata, Bidoof, Zigzagoon, Sentret; Hoothoot, Pidgey, Taillow, Starly; etc.) and why Pokemon like Luvdisc exist. AFAIK, Luvdisc was there solely to be your Heart Scale source in RSE. :)
 
We don't underestimate Nintendo. If anything you're overestimating them. It really doesn't take THAT much insight to realize that putting four different types of attacks on Electivire or using Swords Dance and two STAB moves on Garchomp is a good idea. Surely the designers of the game have some understanding to implement the types of moves they do. We figured this stuff out by only playing the game; they designed it and put months and months of effort into that.
 
The way I see it Nintendo and those that work on Pokemon will have varying levels of knowledge of how to play the game, some knowing nothing or having never played while others would be quite well versed. Obviously whoever did PBR Electivire knows his stuff while Dragonbreath Steelix was someone looking over a movepool and picking the cool looking ones.
 
The whole IV training system also leaves a bad taste in the mouth life-lesson wise. If I were a parent, I wouldn't want my children caught up in a game that encourages thinking that

"You are what you are the moment you're born, and those not born with the right stuff are trash."

Which is essentially the whole mind set of breedng and SRing. Yup, better if the general non-competitive community doesn't know about the IV system. Better for kids to think that if they strive and work hard like Ash and Pikachu they can make their dreams come true.

I don't want to derail the thread but I disagree with this. If anything, it teaches kids that there are differences between Pokemon. Also note that EVs make more than twice the impact that IVs do. Which happens to be analogous to real life; some people need to work harder to reach the same goal. The main difference is that real life has no EV cap. ;)
 
I don't want to derail the thread but I disagree with this. If anything, it teaches kids that there are differences between Pokemon. Also note that EVs make more than twice the impact that IVs do. Which happens to be analogous to real life; some people need to work harder to reach the same goal. The main difference is that real life has no EV cap. ;)

I'm not wanting to derail it either, but that is such a sweet way of perceiving it. :heart: *warm glowing feeling*
 
Back
Top