Now I'm imagining a Barbaracle and a Dodrio at a "our separate consciousnesses keep disagreeing with each other" therapy group.
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
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At least in Binacle's case, they can and do separate if they don't get along, since they don't actually share a body (the rock they're attached to is literally just a rock). I assume Barbaracle also works like this but evolution has altered their physiology (most of them are cycloptic now, while the central one now has five fingers and is considerably larger) so maybe they're conjoined now.
Speaking of them being cycloptic, whether or not the feet have eyes isn't actually as clear as I initially thought. I based my initial comment off this image
where the foot doesn't have an eye, but then I later noticed one of their Pokedex entries might suggest otherwise.
"Having an eye on each palm allows it to keep watch in all directions. In a pinch, its limbs start to act on their own to ensure the enemy's defeat."
Do the feet count as palms? Other dex entries draw a distinction between the legs and the hands, so they might not, but I don't know.
Generally "palms" specifically refer to the hands, you would use "sole" for foot. you dont get to rotate the models upsidedown, but im fairly certain the actual foot continues to not have eyes just like shown in the picture here. The shoulder binacle likely act as back up hands so its still accurate
So you can pick forms to trade for in Pokemon Home, which is really nice for filling your Pokedex. They even let you ask for Furfrou trims, something you can only get through GO. Even incredibly mundane stuff like the colour of your Florgres is available, it's that detailed.
But for some reason, you specifically can't use this for Unown or the Antique Sinistea or Polteageist.
I'd argue this is the most important one to have the option to ask for forms on. Why. All this does is turn Unown trades into lootboxes...
But for some reason, you specifically can't use this for Unown or the Antique Sinistea or Polteageist.
I'd argue this is the most important one to have the option to ask for forms on. Why. All this does is turn Unown trades into lootboxes...
I don't like the battle system in Pokemon Legends Arceus. It does make the game more difficult, which is good, but it does so in a way that feels pretty cheap. When you are fighting Trainers, it basically becomes a OHKO fest, where you kill one of their mons, but can't do anything as soon as they send out their counter and KO you in return. Wild Pokemon aren't AS bad but some alphas feel like straight up cheaters where they can launch 2-3 attacks in succession w/ no cooldown. I do like agile and strong style moves though and they they would be a great addition to future Pokemon games to allow for more dynamic play, but they are inconveninet to use during normal gameplay because they deplete more PP.
The one thing I do like about the battle system though is the retroactive Max Potion that some trainers will use when you knock their Pokemon into low health. Feels like a nice nod to RBY where that was also a thing.
The one thing I do like about the battle system though is the retroactive Max Potion that some trainers will use when you knock their Pokemon into low health. Feels like a nice nod to RBY where that was also a thing.
Plus, there are no spread moves, so it's easy to get dogpiled in battles against multiple opponents.
To be honest, if they kept spread moves, actual 1vMany battles would have been a much better feature in that game specifically. They are mainly use to leverage the fact that player always has the advantage and that's... ok I guess, but would have worked much better if you could have added the further strategic element of maybe lower BP spread moves over regular higher BP ones.
yeah nothing about the Legends Arceus battle system really "clicks" for me. Level & attack matters way too little, there's like no tools whatsoever to deal with multiple Pokemon to the point where the turn system is actively pointless in most instances, hell there's barely any tools at all beyond "dump grit onto the pokemon". And even THEN sometimes its just evening out and you're back at square one. The new turn order system makes moves reactive instead of predictive and that's....that's just no good. It really shows why this game didn't have a PVP mode.
I'm reallly hoping we go back to the traditional battle system for SV. As much as I didn't care for the LA battle system I could at least deal with it for the kind of game it was: a game with a minimal focus on battles, having few required battles and positioning wild battles as something to avoid, and in a game trying to push Pokemon as "Dangerous" it fits the narrative.
The moment it becomes standard hoo boy no thank you. Even accounting for some "no duh" changes (back to the EV system, abilities are back, likely more moves, etc) it'd need some massive overhauls and at that point you're just making a third battle system.
I'm reallly hoping we go back to the traditional battle system for SV. As much as I didn't care for the LA battle system I could at least deal with it for the kind of game it was: a game with a minimal focus on battles, having few required battles and positioning wild battles as something to avoid, and in a game trying to push Pokemon as "Dangerous" it fits the narrative.
The moment it becomes standard hoo boy no thank you. Even accounting for some "no duh" changes (back to the EV system, abilities are back, likely more moves, etc) it'd need some massive overhauls and at that point you're just making a third battle system.
Alolan Vulpix in LA. Why can’t I get more than one? Just make them rare spawns in massive mass outbreaks or distortions or something.
it's so weird that they aren't a distortion Pokemon!
Also, why are there multiple Spiritombs? Sure, you can write off the multiple ones that you can catch as story-gameplay segregation (or, given the extremely low spawn rate, a space-time anomaly), but how do Volo and Cynthia have them? At least Volo could do space-time stuff with Giratina to bring a parallel universe Spiritomb here (or unethically harvest 108 random souls), but Cynthia really has no reason to have one.
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Its presence alone makes no sense. It's the only Pokémon in the game with a Regional Form that is not from Hisui.
That's because you can only obtain it from a sidequest involving an NPC from Alola
Despite the lore, Spiritomb can breed and even in DP i'm pretty sure you can actually use multiple of those stones and go throug hthe entire underground process, and get another spiritomb the same way.
you can handwave it in a few ways:
-the binding of 108 spirits that generated spiritomb in the first place leaves idk some sort of mark on the world and from that more spiritomb can come forth
-there's a lot of communities that got cursed
-While the original lore was a specific set of 108, it just really needs any spirit (maybe with a grudge) and doesnt even need to be another 108 of them
-spiritomb as an entity existed separately and the one we deal with in LA is "The" Spiritomb, or one that is just generally more important. All those spirits did go into a giant sealing stone which is....interesting, since all the other ones are small.
Since Generation 2 introduced 100 new Pokémon, the most satisfying round number of them all, you'd think they'd announce this all over its advertising... but they don't, which I'm guessing was either so they didn't give away Celebi early, or so the anime didn't have to acknowledge Porygon2.
(Side-note: the anime's first end credits theme is called 151, at a point where the characters say there's only 150 known Pokémon. Oops.)
(Side-note: the anime's first end credits theme is called 151, at a point where the characters say there's only 150 known Pokémon. Oops.)
These all make sense, but they don’t explain why they all have keystones. I could envision 108 random malevolent souls coming together to make another Spiritomb, but this would mean that this routinely happens and somebody is always there to chase it down and seal it. Or you could say that the spirits require an Odd Keystone to serve as a focus of sorts, but that is completely contrary to the original lore.
I agree, but I also feel that SV especially should have the traditional battle system if it has multiplayer/PvP and has competitive VGC and BSS and replaces Sword and Shield as the main competitive hub from 2023 onwards.
PLA's battle system is workable in the context of PLA itself not just for the narrative it's pushing in that game, but PLA is aggressively a single-player PvE game so creating a PvE sense of difficulty would be fine for PLA itself.
But PLA's battle system would be absolutely catastrophic for a PvP environment, especially for competitive Pokemon formats. The stat calculation formula, the turn order and action economy, the way damage is calculated. All of that shit would be absolutely horrible for PvP and would create an immensely unenjoyable experience for competitive. You just cannot have a healthy player vs. player battle in the PLA battle system. And since SV is most likely going to replace SwSh as the primary competitive hub for PvP and the official ranked VGC and BSS formats, it definitely needs to return to the traditional battle system for the sake of having a viable competitive battling/PvP environment. To use the PLA system would be a horrible, horrible thing for the competitive battling sphere.
Alright this one is gonna be a hot fucking take but I don't like the way a lot of the pokemon games do the postgame - in fact I actually don't like postgames in general. I think that the climactic end of the story should be that - the end of the story. I think that it cheapens it a little when the game then turns around and tells you to faff about for two hours on some small quest to clean up a few rogue members of the criminal organization. I'd prefer all the game's content to come before the final battle so it can actually be the final battle. It's part of why I love the original B/W so much - the champion battle is also the finale of the team plasma story and makes for a really epic finale.
the BW post game is literally the thing you complained about: the story is about finding the Sages who escaped
Daily reminder that there's literally no reason for SV to not have the regular battle system.
Legends was its own thing. None of the things you saw in it will come to main series. And if you had any doubt about it, the moveset thing they have announced for Home should kill any doubt left.
Legends was its own thing. None of the things you saw in it will come to main series. And if you had any doubt about it, the moveset thing they have announced for Home should kill any doubt left.
Was there any doubt about this?
At most, AT MOST, maybe (just maybe) they'll find a way to incorporate the Strong & Agile Styles... but highly doubt it as the Styles essentially existed to give players an advantage against all the Wild Pokemon they would be battling, notably the Alphas. And the Alphas aren't going to exist cause they were a story mechanic. Thus I think Agile & Strong are also gonna be left behind, though likely replaced with a new Super Mechanic meant for use in a more structured competitive scene modern Pokemon takes place in.
The main innovation that Legends did and will be carried over, AT THE MOMENT, looks to be with the overworld, mainly with Pokemon interactions being a bit more dynamic. Now I'm also hoping that Legend's Battling aesthetics also carry over. Like, YES, the Pokemon are ACTUALLY making contact with one another (or close enough it's serviceable) and battles are taking place within the area that you're in and not a void dimension which sometimes matches where you were when the battle started. The former I don't see a problem with, though the latter may have issues concerning the Weather & Terrain moves (plus they would actually need to make spaces where battling can occur); we would also lose the dynamic camera angles that GF loved to do. They could maybe do a combination of the two, Wild Battles take place on the overworld while Trainer Battles (& other special battles like with the Legendary) we go into the "battle dimension" to allow for the more dynamic angles and more complex strategies.
It does sound contradictory, though I can see how both views can be true. spookysocialist likes that pretty much N's & Team Plasma's story essentially ends at the final battle against Champion/King N and then Ghetsis. It was the perfect ending... so then does the postgame feel like it needs to do cleanup and we're chasing around the Sages? Now this part takes place after Team Plasma has disbanded and N has gone off to do his global soul searching, so it's really not part of the main BW story just something that has a connection to it. And, in their defense, nothing does really happen with the Sage Hunt, you don't really learn anything more about Team Plasma nor the Sages themselves (doesn't even hint that Rood and Zinzolin will be coming back to play important roles). So, why is it here? It's something that just feels stapled on, giving "closure" to characters that only existed to serve a story purpose but nothing else.
Even though I agree BW's postgame story is meh, I personally do like them when they're done well or do something interesting. The most obvious would be XY's where you help Looker do at first what seemed like random investigations but things get more interesting, Emma is introduced, and Looker's true mission is revealed. Yes, it does once again have to do with cleanup of finding rogue Team Flare members, but I feel its better done as brings in the Emma angle. By the end you're no longer just looking for Team Flare members, you're trying to save Emma. And of the Team Flare members they did the two most interesting and gave them (or at least Xerosic) character development. Malva being a part of the Elite Four does mean her continuing freedom needs to be addressed (implied that, for helping Looker the player access the secret Flare Labs, Looker will expunge any evidence or her involvement with Team Flare giving her a clean slate). Xerosic could have also been like the Sages, just there to serve a story role, but by giving him character development of him growing to care about Emma which ultimately leads to turning himself in to clear Emma of any wrongdoing, they gave you a reason to care if not for Xerosic's case but for Emma's.
To sum up my thoughts on other postgame stories:
- ORAS "Delta Episode": Interesting idea but I didn't like Zinnia's character which put a damper on things when you're actually supposed to start "caring" about her. Aww, you lost someone important to you... what does that have to do with you stealing, insulting, and sometimes even beating up my friends and destroying what could have been our ONLY WAY TO SAVE THE WORLD from a meteor because of some kind of hypothetical ethical dilemma; you selfish b****.
- SM's "Ultra Beast Hunt": Was fine for what it was. A lot of "tell but don't show" with the actual encounters with the Ultra Beasts. Story had interesting elements but never really reached the potential it was hinting at (like all this stuff about Fallers and UBs being attracted to them would have had a stronger point if at the end Anabel, who would realize she was being given the run around, decided to go face Guzzlord on her own thus at the end its a race to save Anabel whose being pursued by a powerful UB she wasn't able to handle).
- USUM's "Episode R": Yes, it's pure nostalgia pandering, but I liked it. Wish they could have done a bit more with the other villain leaders (and some things they did with them felt kind of pointless like the Galactic Keycard and Lysandre's two buttons) but for the most part I found it a fun romp.
- SwSd's "Royal Twins": What the f*** was that about? Two goobers with stupid haircuts don't like Sonia's book so decide to be both annoying and cause mass chaos & panic. And this is how we catch the Legendary Mascot of that version, no epic battle, no high stakes, we battle the mascot because the idiots made it go nuts and we're trying to protect them.
Not sure if I'm missing something, but reading its Pokedex descriptions brings some interesting facts to light.
Before Gen VIII, it actually never said the 108 spirits were evil. It said it was formed of 108 spirits. It said it was bound to a fissure in the Odd Keystone as punishment for misdeeds. But those two facts were always kept separate.
Then Sword's Dex entry added this nugget: "Apparently there are some ill-natured spirits in the mix". SOME, not all.
But WAIT! then Legends: Arceus brings up a contradiction: "Writings tell that this Pokémon was born out of the assembly of five score and eight malevolent spirits". Of course you only get that after completing a lengthy side quest involving collecting 107 wisps for a mysterious girl. At the end of the side quest the girl is pretty much revealed to be one of the wisps and allows the player to encounter a Spiritomb. Now the little girl isn't malicious, infact she employs the players help seemingly out of desperation. In addition, once you've collected all 107 wisps, she mentions that she hopes the "traveler" would finally forgive her. Whose this "traveler"? Well Shield's dex entry actually reveals a little bit about that: "All Spiritomb's mischief and misdeeds compelled a traveler to use a mysterious spell to bind Spiritomb to an odd keystone". So, if the little girl was Spiritomb, that would mean Spiritomb felt regretful for the misdeeds it done?
Anyway, what I'm getting is that the 108 spirits forming Spiritomb and it being sealed away are actually two different events. First the 108 spirits form together to form a legion ghost and start causing trouble (cause they're spirits, they got nothing better to do, especially if some of those spirits are troublemakers). Well, they're a major nuisance to the living, so legends go a mysterious traveler used a spell to bind one of them to an Odd Keystone. From there other people probably learned how to make the Odd Keystone and cast the spell, so anytime the 108 spirit beast formed they had someone seal it away.
Now jumping into theory, while the Keystone is used to seal away any random 108 spirits that may gather together, the Keystone itself could also maybe gather 108 spirits from the afterlife who were just looking for some action but weren't able to gather "naturally" with the another 107. So while one can find an ancient Keystone with a Spiritomb inside, one can also find/create an empty Keystone and use it to summon the 108 spirits to gather inside of it.
So, in that regard, maybe both Sword's and Legend's dex entries can be correct. A "natural" Spiritomb could have all 108 spirits be malevolent, though maybe ones which are "artificially" gathered only have a few bad mannered ones.
(Can you believe that there's no clip of this on Youtube?)
Anyway, jokes aside, I imagine Barbaracle functions similarly to colonial organisms such as hydrozoans. Each Binacle has now specialized and can't function without the others:
The head Binacle has likely become more intelligent, being in charge of directing the others to act as one, though at the cost of losing its personal mobility. It's also likely the only Binacle that eats and digests, then sharing the energy it gains with the other six Binacle so they can further focus on their roles.
The four serving as arms have likely learned to be more dexterous (even though oddly its only the face that has turned into a 5-finger hand) and also act as sentries giving the whole group the capability of 360 degree vision. What they lost was an eye as they now work in a group so only need a single eye, said single eye now likely being super developed.
Meanwhile the two serving as legs look to have become thicker and stronger, thus carrying the other 5 and the rocks being no problem and that's now their only concern. Obviously their major loss is their eyes, but what they likely gained instead was a heightened sense of touch (notably for vibrations), balance, and possibly hearing (maybe even able to do high frequency echolocation so that, in addition with sensing vibrations, allowing essentially recreate an image of its surroundings in their mind).
I never had any, but there were some weird people thinking Chilled and Drowsy would have been something coming to the main series and not just an adaptation of the statuses for the battle system.
(Not that I'd have disliked it eh, I think these would have been much better iterations of the main series variant, with Drowsy potentially just making Rest broken, but it was clear to me they were a "Arceus thing" and would remain that way)
I wouldn't say it's a innovation, as I wrote somewhere else, I think the Arceus overworld was the last iteration of something they had started with SwSh.
Started with the Wild Area (that was a very rough start but somewhat functional), then improved into with Armor and Tundra main maps, and culminated with the Arceus version.
I do think SV will mimic Arceus variant of overworld with a "main hub" and then rest will be fully or segmented open area. I kinda hope they will keep the possibility to catch pokes without battling them (by flinging the pokeball directly at them) but I don't have a lot of hopes for that, might remain as "battle only".
Ban it to AG, then ban it from AG to AG+++ lol
Eh, there was someone at the time who was saying that Legend Plate would be strong but not as strong as people make it to. It kinda has the same "downside" as Protean that it's not optional, with arceus being on a speed tier that's actually not as amazing as it used to be for Ubers standards (expecially with the addition of Calyrex and Zacian), while still being limited by not holding a item (so no power boosting and no scarf or status protection) so it'd not be able to magically take over the tier. It'd also not be able to fulfil Arceus usual defensive or support roles since outside of using Judgement it'd be locked to Normal type, and also if for example Judgement changes it to a bad type, it'd be easy to revenge kill via shadow tag / arena trap / similar means or just being faster than 120 speed.
Like, sure, it'd be strong, but way less op that people make it. It's kind of a Regieleki case where people thought it was absolutely bonkers and would break the game but in reality it turned out to be an average pokemon with its up and downsides in both VGC and smogon.