-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
new one: poltchageist and sinistcha even existing
because sinistea and polteageist were already designs that didn't thrill me, with a form mechanic i find incredibly stupid, but that's fine because nobody likes everything. but that gamefreak was So into the concept that they created the least diverse "ecologically similar" versions possible and slapped a grass type over it? they are almost as redundant as silcoon and cascoon being different mons. NO ME GUSTA.
because sinistea and polteageist were already designs that didn't thrill me, with a form mechanic i find incredibly stupid, but that's fine because nobody likes everything. but that gamefreak was So into the concept that they created the least diverse "ecologically similar" versions possible and slapped a grass type over it? they are almost as redundant as silcoon and cascoon being different mons. NO ME GUSTA.
new one: poltchageist and sinistcha even existing
because sinistea and polteageist were already designs that didn't thrill me, with a form mechanic i find incredibly stupid, but that's fine because nobody likes everything. but that gamefreak was So into the concept that they created the least diverse "ecologically similar" versions possible and slapped a grass type over it? they are almost as redundant as silcoon and cascoon being different mons. NO ME GUSTA.
Counterpoint:
Nah what annoys me in Pokémon is the fact that fucking 3v3 exists. LIKE BRO WHO CARES ABOUT THAT FORMAT WHEN VGC EXIST, THEY DON’T EVEN SINGLES 3v3 IN OFFICIAL TOURNAMENTS SO THAT FORMAT IS JUST ROTTING. No one plays it super seriously besides some Japanese players but why does it exist if it’s not gonna be used in official tournaments?
Because otherwise they wouldn’t have an online singles ladder on cart?
All the cross-posting going on right now.
But... yeah. On this. I think most people would agree that mythicals have been getting steadily less exciting and unique as time goes on, but I think the very least you can hope for is that they're somewhat associated with the region they're from. I don't mean in terms of them being consistent in terms of inspiration or design, I mean in terms of there being any sort of tangible link or impact on their native region's geography or history. Kalos is the last region where all the mythicals are explicitly linked to the region's history and/or landmarks (well, less so with Hoopa but then its thing is literally teleporting all over the world so that one's understandable).
Seriously, look at the others. Mew? It's explicitly not Kanto-native but it has a strong lore link to Kanto with Mewtwo and Team Rocket and all the rest of that stuff. Celebi is linked to the Ilex Forest shrine and HGSS adds the detail that it often makes people and Pokémon fall through time. Darkrai has its own island in Sinnoh and has an impact on Eldritch's son; Shaymin has two dedicated locations in Floaroma Town and the Seabreak Path. Arceus is tied to the lore of Mt Coronet and Sinnoh's creation. Manaphy again isn't Sinnoh-native but there's a fairly extensive story around it which explicitly points to Sinnoh as being the only place it can be hatched. Victini and Keldeo have dedicated locations in Unova while Genesect is tied to Team Plasma's story. Meloetta is the least tied to Unova, but three out of four isn't bad. Space can hardly be called part of Hoenn but Deoxys's meteor heads there in ORAS - in the originals Birth Island is technically not part of Hoenn but it's up to interpretation. Jirachi has no particularly obvious link beyond the white rock in Mossdeep - but Jirachi has always been a bit of an oddball as it's the only pre-Gen V mythical without a catchable location.
Gen VI was where they started half-assing mythicals but come Gen VII, it's like they fully gave up trying to justify any sort of relevance at all. Magearna is the only one of Gen VII's mythicals with an explicit link to Alola, and even then it's just that it was a gift for royalty. But there's an argument that it's pretty Kalos-influenced and I think there's a validity to that.
Marshadow, though? What connection does Marshadow have to Alola? None that I'm aware of. In the anime it's paired with Ho-oh and not even native to Alola (Mt Tensei is in Kanto, right? Idk, I only saw that movie once) and nothing in the games I can recall suggests it has anything to do with the region either. Zeraora? Nope, no real link to Alola in lore either - that windy city in the movie definitely ain't in Alola. There was that one anime episode with the guy and his Zeraora but that was pretty much after the fact (also it's literally set in an alternate dimension).
Zarude? Uh... nope. Not a clue what relevance Zarude has to Galar, let alone the Isle of Armour specifically. Given how heavily Galar's species tend to lean into British influenced-designs a baboon is a bit out of place for an area based on the Isle of Man (and yeah I know that doesn't really matter - there's lions in France and elephants in Britain in this universe after all). Bulbapedia suggests various inspirations from British myths which would be cool except it's all basically conjecture because Zarude is nowhere on the IoA. There's not even one of those cutscenes where you bring it to an NPC and get a text dump about its backstory.
Obviously something can be native to somewhere without having had a major impact there - mythicals are generally not common knowledge, after all. But it's just so dull to have a mythical plopped into an area without any further context or story. And to reiterate, it's not a design issue: the Swords of Justice aren't American-inspired designs, after all, but they're Unovan legends because they're part of its history. I'm not hugely familiar with Pecharunt's story yet but from what I've seen it's a step back in the right direction. So that's something. Hopefully that continues.
Though a part of its lore comes outside the games (from that video) it most definitely is. I and many others have been wanting Mythical events to actually be something ingame rather than a random mystery gift drop (I mean cmon at least for the first time a mon is available in its own region!)
I also quite liked the save data bonus stuff they did with BDSP and Legends: Arceus but I understand why it might not be popular, i.e forcing people to buy another game for certain content, which is why I’m guessing that feature was pulled back to just cosmetic features in S/V.
Birth Island's location is not up to interpretation actually, it is explicitly part of the Sevii Islands. It will actually show up on the map in FRLG once you've been there. It's south of Six Island and east of Seven Island.
I'm honestly still surprised (in a good way) Pecharaunt is as related to Kitakami and the Loyal Three as it is. You could argue Mew is also strongly related to Mewtwo sure, but after so many years of, as previously mentioned, seemingly random Mythicals it's such a welcome change. The Japanese game also makes it really obvious it's the Momotaro of the group so you inmediatly know it's special (and I love the "closed" design, it's very simple yet very effective).
What personally annoys me of Zeraora and Zarude specifically is that they don't seem like Mythical designs. I know that's a rather subjective thing, but I feel like in their case they just seem too generic and I wouldn't guess they are special at all by just looking at them. This is not helped by Zarude seemingly living on herds (I'm not against the idea of more than a single member of the species existing, but if Zarudes usually live togethee, what is that makes them so special?). And I always found perplexing how Alola gave us Ultrabeasts with bizarre and unique designs but then at the end just had a random thunder cat furry thing. I don't need all Mythicals to be pixie/Mew-esque but at least make them stand out somehow.
What personally annoys me of Zeraora and Zarude specifically is that they don't seem like Mythical designs. I know that's a rather subjective thing, but I feel like in their case they just seem too generic and I wouldn't guess they are special at all by just looking at them. This is not helped by Zarude seemingly living on herds (I'm not against the idea of more than a single member of the species existing, but if Zarudes usually live togethee, what is that makes them so special?). And I always found perplexing how Alola gave us Ultrabeasts with bizarre and unique designs but then at the end just had a random thunder cat furry thing. I don't need all Mythicals to be pixie/Mew-esque but at least make them stand out somehow.
Birth Island's location is not up to interpretation actually, it is explicitly part of the Sevii Islands. It will actually show up on the map in FRLG once you've been there. It's south of Six Island and east of Seven Island.
Of all the things in that post to seize upon...
I know it's part of the Sevii Islands but I've seen people insist the Seviis are part of Hoenn or part of Kanto, or even jointly part of Hoenn and Kanto, much as some people (wrongly) insist that Faraway Island is part of Hoenn.
I take the Seviis to be entirely their own area and not part of Hoenn at all but it's one of those things people have quibbled over for ages.
I think one thing they suffered from was a bunch of the Mythicals being tied to movies that were just flat out not in continuity with the main series. Like Marshadow and Zarude are used to promote the ICY continuity of films, but since those are in a separate verse they just go to non-descript Kanto locations because they didn't want to constrain themselves to the region proper.
I think another issue that arises is that the Mythical label kind of feels arbitrary the further we go into the series. Beforehand there was this idea that the Pokemon were so mysterious even among Legendaries that you couldn't be sure they existed until the event brings them up (the closest you get to non-event references are Sinnoh dropping hints in the most Legend-heavy region, maybe there is a Keldeo reference in Unova for the Swords of Justice, and some visual hints that in hindsight are Pecharunt for Kitakami). Then in Gen 6-onward they forget to give them actual encounter events (Diancie gets an event where two people just go "Nice Legendary you got there. Can I have it?" which almost has the opposite effect on the mystique) save for Meltan, who feels more like a regular Pokemon they made a Mythical to add value to the Go Promotion.
Can I also throw one minor annoyance on Mythical stuff in? Why is Pecharunt's number in the Blueberry Dex when literally nothing about it extends outside Kitakami in lore or in the event? Walking Wake and Iron Leaves at least tie to the ID Paradoxes, but they also demonstrate you can just tack the Mythicals on as hidden numbers for an "incomplete" Dex, so why not put Pecharunt as a secret addition to the Kitakami Dex, where the other Legendaries it relates to are also recorded?
In context though, those people are servants of a guy who’s been searching for Diancie for half of his life, as one might do in the hopes of encountering a Mythical. It’s not an amazing event concept or anything, but it is still constructed with the idea that Diancie is incredibly rare and sought-after.
I think the factor that makes it feel “uneventful” is more that it just happens in any random Pokémon Center and consists of NPCs spewing text at you and then leaving. There’s no battle or cutscene or anything to indicate the importance of what you’re dealing with.
Meltan of all mythicals does have actual lore surrounding it so I'm willing to give that a pass, even if its mostly conveyed through exposition. At least in-universe its meant as new research and discoveries about it.
Zeraora in general is just weird, though.
Like, okay...I'm not as hung up on labels of Legendary or Mythical ("Phantom") as some people are, right? So I'm fine with a Pokemon only being kinda vaguely rare or at least having something notable about it that you can sink into. I also think it's mostly fine if it doesnt really tie into the region; I can suspend disbelief. They wanted these Pokemon this generation, it doesnt NEED to tie in necessarily, even if it's nice.
Diancie has the carbink connection, which makes it rare and sought after and rarely seen. neat! Anime gave it a whole kingdom, very cute.
Hoopa's a sneaky jerk who hops between places instantly stealing shit, and then extra lore that it was way mroe powerful and malicious and sealed away. It's not really tied to Kalos (or even Hoenn), but hey that's neat!
Volcanion is effectively a Kalos cryptid. Only seen in the mountains of it, producing steam like fog. Cool!
Magearna has the whole king backstory and the soul heart and the storytelling of its color fading over time, and the interesting oddity of being treated like an antique
Marshadow doesnt really have lore around it that ties it into any specific region & even in its movie it's just sort of tacked on, but it does like. Have a thing about it. it hides in the shadows away from people, so it's very rarely seen. Assuming its powered up mode is still caleld "Zenith" it might even have some vague connection to Z Power.
Meltan I already mentioned, it's got stuff going on.
Zarude isn't strictly-speaking super rare (to be fair, it's with Shaymin & Phione on that front), and doesn't tie into Galar at all, but it does have stuff about its habitat and what it contributes to the forest. And the movie gets to focus on that in its entirity, and made one extra special since it left its troop to raise a child. There's some forest protector stuff that's consistent in both things. So sure, fine. It just needed to be put into a game, an
But Zeraora just.... Exists. It's fast. It's fearsome. The anime gives it a "heart of gold" towards the weak, fair enough. But that's it.
Its presence in the movie could have been just about any Pokemon, even more so than Marshadow (which at least has interesting theming around shadows of the heart). A tie-in gave a supposed origin of it being born when a lightning bolt hit a volcano (...sure? is that meant to be canon to anything else or....?)
In the anime it's...also just something that exists, in an alternate universe
It's a cool design but there's just nothing going on here.
Zeraora in general is just weird, though.
Like, okay...I'm not as hung up on labels of Legendary or Mythical ("Phantom") as some people are, right? So I'm fine with a Pokemon only being kinda vaguely rare or at least having something notable about it that you can sink into. I also think it's mostly fine if it doesnt really tie into the region; I can suspend disbelief. They wanted these Pokemon this generation, it doesnt NEED to tie in necessarily, even if it's nice.
Diancie has the carbink connection, which makes it rare and sought after and rarely seen. neat! Anime gave it a whole kingdom, very cute.
Hoopa's a sneaky jerk who hops between places instantly stealing shit, and then extra lore that it was way mroe powerful and malicious and sealed away. It's not really tied to Kalos (or even Hoenn), but hey that's neat!
Volcanion is effectively a Kalos cryptid. Only seen in the mountains of it, producing steam like fog. Cool!
Magearna has the whole king backstory and the soul heart and the storytelling of its color fading over time, and the interesting oddity of being treated like an antique
Marshadow doesnt really have lore around it that ties it into any specific region & even in its movie it's just sort of tacked on, but it does like. Have a thing about it. it hides in the shadows away from people, so it's very rarely seen. Assuming its powered up mode is still caleld "Zenith" it might even have some vague connection to Z Power.
Meltan I already mentioned, it's got stuff going on.
Zarude isn't strictly-speaking super rare (to be fair, it's with Shaymin & Phione on that front), and doesn't tie into Galar at all, but it does have stuff about its habitat and what it contributes to the forest. And the movie gets to focus on that in its entirity, and made one extra special since it left its troop to raise a child. There's some forest protector stuff that's consistent in both things. So sure, fine. It just needed to be put into a game, an
But Zeraora just.... Exists. It's fast. It's fearsome. The anime gives it a "heart of gold" towards the weak, fair enough. But that's it.
Its presence in the movie could have been just about any Pokemon, even more so than Marshadow (which at least has interesting theming around shadows of the heart). A tie-in gave a supposed origin of it being born when a lightning bolt hit a volcano (...sure? is that meant to be canon to anything else or....?)
In the anime it's...also just something that exists, in an alternate universe
It's a cool design but there's just nothing going on here.
Funnily enough the Zeraora movie was exactly what i was thinking about when I mentioned it. As you say, the role could be given to pretty much any Pokemon, and it isn't like it would be the first time a non-mythical is the star of a film (trough I guess Mew it's on Lucario's movie and Celebi on Zoroark's so there is usually some mythical presence). With Zarude it just feels weird to me to label the entire species as mythical when there is already a particular, special member of it. Feels kinda unnecesary.
I feel like the idea with Zeraora being considered Mythical has to do with it moving with the speed of a lightning strike — that’s really one of the few details we even have about it, and like Marshadow hiding in peoples’ shadows, it would be a logical-enough explanation for the rarity of Zeraora sightings, but even that feels kind of unremarkable since there are lots of Pokémon that can move at pretty ridiculous speeds; they’re just more common species than Zeraora.
(If it were me, I’d have perhaps suggesting theming it around ball lightning? That’s kinda where my mind goes if you ask me to think of an idea for an Electric-type that’s also supposed to be very rare and poorly documented, rather than… a GF artist’s fursona.)
(If it were me, I’d have perhaps suggesting theming it around ball lightning? That’s kinda where my mind goes if you ask me to think of an idea for an Electric-type that’s also supposed to be very rare and poorly documented, rather than… a GF artist’s fursona.)
Eh. Having special powers isn't really anything particularly notable though. There are Pokemon which can transport souls to the spirit world and generate black holes and see into the past and future simultaneously and generate light bright enough to be seen from space and create acid strong enough to dissolve whole bodies in a single day and cause volcanoes to erupt, and only the last of those is a legendary.
Which is why mythicals kind of inherently need that special story that makes them worthy of legend - sure they have impressive capabilities, but what did they do with them? Did they heroically save someone? Did they aid humanity to build something? Did they help someone towards a great understanding? Did they terrorise towns and cities?
Otherwise it's just... a really strong Pokemon. Seriously, viewed out of context there's nothing to indicate which of the following two dex entries refers to a mythical Pokemon.
It gives off so much light that it can be seen even from space. People in the old days used its light to send signals back and forth with others far away.
It electrifies its claws and tears its opponents apart with them. Even if they dodge its attack, they'll be electrocuted by the flying sparks.
speaking of mythicals that could be replaced with a common pokémon, do you know what should have been the absolute opposite of that?
eternal flower floette. a mythical in all but species, which ironically has made it More unobtainable than other mythicals, rather than less. manaphy and diancie (in this very generation) exist as mythicals related to another mon species! that floette should have been its own species too!!
eternal flower floette. a mythical in all but species, which ironically has made it More unobtainable than other mythicals, rather than less. manaphy and diancie (in this very generation) exist as mythicals related to another mon species! that floette should have been its own species too!!
It's not it's own species because it's supposed to be a regular Floette revived by the energy drained by the big weapon in Kalos. It just being a particularly powerful Floette was literally the point.
It still bothers me that she was never released.
Eh.
Like obviously it doesn't make sense canonically for a lot of event Pokemon to exist (why is there a second, and shiny, Eternatus? Why does this random Keldeo I received from a code seem to be the exact same one from legend? Why is this random Deoxys in a Dusk Ball apparently a "Team Plasma Deoxys", like when exactly did Team Plasma capture one of these things) but y'know, you overlook that because they're generally not meant to be... real, for lack of a better word. They're kind of a bonus, an easter egg. Usually when you encounter a legendary Pokemon, the game doesn't outright say "it's the only one ever!" so it's not a complete suspension of disbelief for me to catch a Rayquaza and then get a shiny Rayquaza from an event distribution.
But Eternal Flower Floette being available to the player would be... really weird. It's not like most legendaries where if you really squint you can argue the case for more than one of them existing. This is a Pokemon explicitly created once, as a freak accident, and it makes no sense that AZ would turn her over to the player. Even though a lot of NPCs who give the player their Pokemon justify it with "you'll take better care of it than I would" or "I think it likes you more than it does me", you'd have to rewrite a lot of the story for AZ to finally reunite with Floette after 3000 years and then go "y'know what, you take her". Unless the story was him meeting her one last time and then, satisfied and with his purpose fulfilled, finally being able to die. But that's pretty bleak for the main series and I don't see that happening.
As I write this part of me wonders if actually the initial plan was for you to battle it at some point, so it was put in the game for that reason. Basically exactly the same case as Eternamax Eternatus - it's not available to the player, but for programming reasons it needs a distinct form and its own stats (and in later games, its own dex entry).
But getting your own Eternal Flower Floette would be implausible in a literal story-breaking way. The only way I could see that working in a canonical sense would be if you travelled back in time or something and partnered with it at some point in the 3000 years where it was travelling solo.
(just... ignore my AZ's Floette X challenge run, yeah)
All that aside, the rational part of my brain which just wrote all this is admittedly at odds with the emotional part which sees a collectathon and cannot rest until it's completed, so yeah it's annoying on that level
It's always interesting to see people's varying levels of suspension of disbelief
Because to me I wouldn't blink twice: the floette would likely have just been a give away with no relevance to the story. A fun "hey, you can use it to now" situation, similar to most other give aways or something like the original colors magearna.
Because to me I wouldn't blink twice: the floette would likely have just been a give away with no relevance to the story. A fun "hey, you can use it to now" situation, similar to most other give aways or something like the original colors magearna.
I mean obviously suspension of disbelief is the sort of thing that every person has their own judgement on, and generally gets ignored for the sake of convenience anyway ("Xerneas and Yveltal are only found in Galar!"). Even the original colour Magearna being available doesn't necessarily break canon: if you want to imagine that there's only one of those in existence, you can simply rationalise that it passed through many hands and eventually somehow ended up in Grand Oak's possession to be given to you.
Like they could totally have given EF Floette away as an event, and it absolutely would have been a "hey, you can use this now as well" situation with no issue. But it's just such a singular example-that-proves-the-rule where it outright makes no sense to do so that I wonder why else they didn't. Giovanni's Nidoqueen? Eh, maybe Giovanni genuinely did release his Nidoqueen, and it's not like Nidoqueen is a Pokemon inextricably associated with him (though tbh that's one area where I am actually willing to suspend disbelief entirely - event Pokemon like Ash's Pikachu are generally more like... a representation of that Pokemon, not the literal individual). But an explicitly story-relevant Pokemon that makes no sense whatsoever to be in your possession? Mmm, that one's a little harder to take.
The XY lore in this thread is a little mistaken — AZ’s Floette wasn’t a one-off, accidental creation. Watch the war flashback again — it exists as an Eternal Flower Floette before it dies in the war. It’s even using Light of Ruin in the big splash image. The only thing the weapon did to it was render it inmortal.
According to Masuda, that Floette was given to AZ as a gift from his mother. She must have gotten it from somewhere, so I think there’s plenty of wiggle room to say that others could have existed, especially since in ORAS, an Eternal Flower blooms next to the big tree in Sootopolis after Groudon/Kyogre is defeated. Personally, I always assumed EF Floette is just what happened when a Flabébé or Floette bonded with that species of flower.
According to Masuda, that Floette was given to AZ as a gift from his mother. She must have gotten it from somewhere, so I think there’s plenty of wiggle room to say that others could have existed, especially since in ORAS, an Eternal Flower blooms next to the big tree in Sootopolis after Groudon/Kyogre is defeated. Personally, I always assumed EF Floette is just what happened when a Flabébé or Floette bonded with that species of flower.
That does seem to track, the USUM entries also solely focus on the type of flower rather than the origin of the floette specifically
Kalos revisit flower lore gonna be nutty!