I have a few things I wanted to mention about the datamines that I thought about over the past two weeks. And by “things”, I mainly mean the Pokémon themselves for the sake of this post.
You’ve got to be kidding me. It wasn’t enough that they got rid of event moves starting in the Switch era. Now they’re giving this thing 45 more points in Special Attack and some other nice boosts at the cost of 10 points of base Speed. Let me say that again: +45 Special Attack at the cost of Speed. They’re actually just screwing with me at this point. If you know, you know. Personal beef aside, this feels like it could be a Mega Camerupt 2.0 in a weird sort of way. We’ll have to see if Heatran actually ends up using that Attack it’s also getting or if it’s just going to run bulky special sets.
What we’re getting here is… fine, I guess, it’s not what I expected, but I like my idea better. When I first heard about Mega Darkrai, my immediate first thought was “the only change they should give it is giving it back pre-nerf Dark Void”. Aaaand then the realization hit me. At least in Legends ZA specifically, Dark Void’s going to be absolutely cracked.
FINALLY, Game Freak adds Magearna into a Kalos Pokémon game as God intended. I’ve been waiting almost nine years for this. One of my favorite archetypes in Pokémon is the “cross-generational promotion” style. Think things like Lugia, Latias and Latios, Lucario, Zoroark… Haxorus of all things? Stuff that’s either designed before or shown off before the generation it’s being released in. Magearna is unique among that crowd of Pokémon in that not only does it make sense for Magearna to be in Kalos in some capacity, but I’m almost certain it was originally going to be. Gen 7’s Mythicals were famously the subject of a lot of swapping around, and while I doubt we’ll get a true answer on if Magearna was meant for Pokémon Z like I thought it might have been back in 2016, Magearna’s return in Lumiose City specifically gives me “3DS Era Power Plant Theory” vibes and I am all for it. …just for them to inevitably mess this up anyway.
sigh
These three’s inclusion fascinates me for a reason completely unrelated to Kalos itself. Eagle eyed fans may have noticed that, during Gen 6’s active lifespan, we actually spent more time in Hoenn (two years) than we did in Kalos (one year). Oops. The idea that theirs and Hoopa’s inclusion is almost certainly ORAS inspired is not lost on me. What is interesting is what this might mean for a future Hoenn game, assuming we even get one on the Switch 2. On one hand, if this is meant to be similar to a “Legends Hoenn” game, that would decrease the odds of, say, a Jirachi or a Deoxys themed game later, but on the other hand, Deoxys was already featured in ORAS anyway, and I don’t remember if either of those two were in the leaks after the mascot Legendaries, but it would feel incredibly strange to feature these three and
not Deoxys for whatever reason. In any case, Rayquaza and the Primals still interest me regardless of when and what the next Hoenn game could be if only for the fact that I’m interested to see how their Abilities are handled in this DLC.
Oh, f*** yes. I love seeing the little guys get some love. You just know this thing’s about to go crazy too. I don’t think Mega Chimecho is going to be Psychic/Fairy simply due to clashing with Gardevoir if that were the case, but there a number of different ways they could go depending on the typing and Ability this gets. Anything is better than how Chimecho was on release- hidden away as a rare spawn in only one area of the game, with only a couple Gym trainers even letting you know “Hey, Chimecho exists”. Hoenn had a record breaking TWENTY Psychic-Types added, and out of the remaining ones that hadn’t got anything yet, I’d argue this and Grumpig need buffs the most.
