Speaking of PLA... What did they do to my boys Dialga and Palkia 
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
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Featuring random Heatran and paintings of Hisuian mons.
Blueballs In Four Acts
>"It's the Legends Arceus tie-in special! Except, actually, 4 Hisui Pokemon just cameo briefly in a fantasy sequence. Dawn doesn't even put on the Survey Corps uniform"
>"Ash, Goh and Dawn get the Hisui starters! Except, actually, these are just temporary catches which are never used again and never evolve into their final forms"
>"Team Galactic opens a dimensional portal! No, this isn't used to bring in any additional new Pokemon or characters, why would we show off Volo or Laventon?"
>"We're never touching on this game again for the rest of this series btw."
I know this started releasing before PLA came out but they could've just... Not done that? God I hope Horizons does a proper New Lumiose City arc instead of whatever this is.
I didn't even follow Journeys at the time and I would be pissed, but it's kind of hilarious. As for Horizons, I want them to do more original content- it would be awful if after an entire arc about getting to being able to Tera, it's quickly overshadowed by Megas. Teough Gibeon having a Zygarde makes me think we are seeing a Shiny Complete Zygarde vs Shiny Mega Rayquaza. Not the black and white I wanted but could be exciting on its own.
Ehhh, considering any potential in-depth Z-A tie-in probably isn't happening for another year and a half I think there's more than enough time to pivot from the Tera stuff to Kalos shilling without it feeling too sudden or anticlimactic. They could just do both anyway, have Liko roll up to the climactic finale with Stellar Tera Meowscarada and Mega Greninja or something, I dunno.
A new Generations set may be coming for the TCG, representing each generation. Each one has a pair of new Pokemon ex to represent it:
Snorlax and Pikachu
Tyranitar and Lugia
Blaziken and Kyogre
Lucario and Dialga
Amoonguss and Reshiram
Noivern and Xerneas
Mimikyu and Tapu-Koko
Alcremie and Zacian
Clodsire and Koraidon
Leaving favouritisms of box legendary and starters aside...I love my boi Clodsire and believe it's better than Quagsire, but why on earth is it representing this gen when Gholdengo exists? Clodsire is ultimately just a regional evo, hardly unique of Paldea. And yes that has bothered me more than Amoonguss.
But hey, I never finished my marketing career. Maybe it's extremely popular in Japan or something. I doubt picking Zacian over Zamazenta was accidentsl for example.
Snorlax and Pikachu
Tyranitar and Lugia
Blaziken and Kyogre
Lucario and Dialga
Amoonguss and Reshiram
Noivern and Xerneas
Mimikyu and Tapu-Koko
Alcremie and Zacian
Clodsire and Koraidon
Leaving favouritisms of box legendary and starters aside...I love my boi Clodsire and believe it's better than Quagsire, but why on earth is it representing this gen when Gholdengo exists? Clodsire is ultimately just a regional evo, hardly unique of Paldea. And yes that has bothered me more than Amoonguss.
But hey, I never finished my marketing career. Maybe it's extremely popular in Japan or something. I doubt picking Zacian over Zamazenta was accidentsl for example.
Clodsire is very cute, well liked and is the star Pokemon to Rika, who is also cute & well liked.
I'd also argue that the Pokemon who only evolves from the Paldean regional form is probably a good fit to represent Paldea itself.
Personally I think there's a bunch of Pokemon they could have used instead (Gholdengo, Tinkaton, the starters, Dudunsparce (Larry!), Mabosstiff (Arven!), etc etc) but I think Clodsire's a perfectly fine choice.
Also wouldn't surprise me if Clodsire is Fighting so it pairs with Koraidon's energy requirements. Which makes me wonder if Blaziken might be a Tera ex because while some of the other "off type" pairs can find other ways tos hare energy (Colorless, Dragon typing) Fire/Fighting cannot pair with Water.
Also....incidentally....I had to search around for this. This isn't really a "set" as it is a collection of theme decks themed around Generations. They put those out from time to time, like this set of "ex Starter Decks". One could also make the argument that they chose a few 'weirder' picks for the sake of being...well, different. I mean look at those ex starter decks
You got your box legends, easy. Seems like they also purposely chose 2 mythics, 2 starters and 2 normie stage 1 Pokemon. I don't think you or I would necessarily call Clefable or Houndoom unpopular but probably not your immediate go tos. I think they just wanted to reach for some extra variety while also spreading aroudn types.
Cross-gen and regional forms/evolutions are the typical choice used to market generations as a whole though, except for when there aren't any/many cross-gen evos or when the gen in question has more iconic marketable mons (which is often the case though doesn't always happen immediately - sometimes it takes a while for a mon to become the "breakout" character).
Like Sylveon is one of the most prominently-marketed Kalos mons and has remained so. It's easy to see why, it connects the old to the new by associating something familiar with the new mechanics - look, Eevee has a new evolution now; look, snow Vulpix; look, finally a Farfetch'd evolution.
I'm not remotely an expert on how the card game works so I'm thinking completely on the basis of aesthetics/marketability here but, looking at the list, while most of the species used are not cross-gen evos or regional forms you can kind of see why they were picked:
- Snorlax and Pikachu: Pikachu is obvious; could have been Eevee too, but honestly multiple Pokemon from Kanto are iconic by now and they're clearly trying to go for a contrast with each pairing - Pikachu and Eevee are both cute and unevolved while Snorlax operates differently from Pikachu mechanically
- Tyranitar is a slightly unusual choice for Johto but if you're going for a general toughness vibe it works - Johto imo actually has a much larger array of marketable species than you'd first assume (Marill, Ampharos, Espeon, Umbreon, Houndoom, Scizor, Miltank, Wooper, Cyndaquil, Totodile). Lugia and Ho-oh are both recognisable and iconic but Lugia is generally liked a little more than Ho-oh overall
- Hoenn only has two cross-gen evos which no-one really likes and are visually kind of dull; meanwhile Blaziken is an iconic Gen III Pokemon revealed early and used to promote Gen III/Hoenn at pretty much every turn. Again Kyogre and Groudon are both fairly balanced but Kyogre gives a red/blue visual contrast and is probably slightly more liked than Groudon overall
- Lucario hardly needs explaining (ironic, given Sinnoh is the big cross-gen evolution region - but so many of those species are generally widely disliked) and Dialga has always been more popular than Palkia. Again, considering how many legendaries Sinnoh has, not that many of them are especially popular: Shaymin kind of, Darkrai yeah, Arceus obviously, but mythicals probably are a bit of an overstep. Giratina is, but I think Dialga edges it out slightly
- Noivern is one of the more popular gen VI species and used fairly often to represent Kalos - Sylveon would have the obvious choice, but I guess they didn't want to double up on types too much and Xerneas works better to represent Kalos than Yveltal
- Mimikyu is obvious, it's the very iconic gen VII - Tapu Koko is a strange choice given how well-liked Lunala is, actually (but again maybe Lunala and Mimikyu feel redundant together given they're both night/Ghost Pokemon)
- Again, Alcremie is an iconic gen VIII species - Sirfetch'd could have been used as it's a majorly popular and marketable species but there's a bit of aesthetic/thematic overlap with Zacian despite them not sharing types
And then we come to gen IX, which... well, Clodsire has a lot of popular appeal and is more recognisable than, say, Paldean Tauros (which one of those would you use, as well?) or... oh, I literally had to look up whether any other Paldean forms existed which kind of makes my point. And there's not a huge amount of Gen 9 Pokemon that have made a popular impact. Gholdengo kind of? But Clodsire feels more like the overall best choice.
Amoonguss though... god knows.
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I was under the impression that Groudon is more popular than Kyogre actually. Groudon's design feels like it'd be generally more appealing to people at first glance than its counterpart.
I kind of dislike how the signature moves for the genies have been implemented in their transition to a proper core series game. Because of the difference in game mechanics between SV and PLA, it seems like they lost a bit of uniqueness in their in-battle effects and interactions.
The signature moves are generally designed off seasonal weather changes, the genies themselves, and/or and the locations the genies are found roaming in:
- Bleakwind Storm is clearly based off winter, and it can inflict frostbite. Tornadus is found roaming in a snow-covered region of Hisui.
- Springtide Storm is clearly based off spring, with PLA's dex entry on Enamorus backing up this fact. While it doesn't inflict a status condition in PLA, Enamorus's overworld attacks can inflict a confusion effect on the player (reverses controls), so it could suggest that it can inflict the actual confusion status in a core game.
- Wildbolt Storm is based off summer (rains). Thundurus is found within a sea-oriented region of Hisui with beaches and coastlands, which can be attributed to the general idea of summertime.
- Sandsear Storm doesn't bring the autumn season to mind; however, Landorus's dex entries throughout the games make it heavily associated with fall harvests. Landorus also acts as a mediator between the tempestuous natures of thunderstorms and harsh (cold) winds, like how autumn is a transitional period from summer to winter.
I know this entire conversation amounts to "Anecdotally this pokemon is clearly more popular" but, Anecdotally, Kyogre's always come off as more popular and Rayquaza specifically is significantly more popular than either of them by a large degree.
I mean, Speed down is the other effect associated with Ice besides Freeze.
Springtide Storm's actual effect in Legends was to raise all the user's stats if Enamorus was in regular form or lower all the target's stats if it was in Therian form. Multi-target moves that affect the user's stats are kind of janky (see Diamond Storm), so the decided to keep the Therian form version's effect, but you know nerf it to not be absolutely busted.
So you haven't played Gen 5 in a while then? Cause while I could maybe see putting Sandsear to Sandstorm, both Tornadus and Thundurus are associated with rain in Gen 5.
Also the can't miss in rain part was a thing for the orignal three's Storms in Legends as well, it just wasn't easy to pull off.
I know about the secondary effects of Springtide Storm in PLA. I pointed out the effect of Enamorus's overworld attack because both it and those differing secondary effects play into Enamorus's theme around opposites and flipping concepts on their heads—being the only female member of its group, originally having the Healer ability to contrast Tornadus and Thundurus's Prankster, and its HA Contrary also contribute to that idea. Making Springtide Storm have a set secondary effect loses a bit of the flavor despite being probably necessary.
I'm aware that both Tornadus and Thundurus were originally associated with rainy weather in their debut generation. However, Bleakwind Storm's in-game description and secondary effects in both games suggest that it's based off snowstorms.
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I'm sure this wasn't deliberate, but I find it funny that all of the legendaries except Koraidon are from the Blue version of the game. (Lugia, Kyogre, Dialga, Xernia, Zacian). Tapu Koko is universal, and Reshiram is from White 2 and Black 1. If it was really about popularity, clearly GF thinks one of the versions is always better than the other.
This is what Pokémon would be without Exp. Groups
Medium-"Fast" my foot.
Medium-"Fast" my foot.
Pokemon HOME preventing you from transferring mythicals and legends from GO into a game if you haven't had the species in game before was already obnoxious, but apparently it goes further and doesn't let you transfer if you haven't had the exact form in game? I just transferred a deoxys-defense into SV, saved and sent back to main menu, went back in and couldn't transfer a deoxys normal from GO into the game. Had to go in and get the meteorite and rotate the deoxys through its forms before it would let me transfer it.
Deoxys is also probably the funniest example this could happen to considering the last time Deoxys was available outside of Go was ORAS, and the form changing means that you run into extra issues.
Why does Gen 2 have so many pokémon that never show up anywhere? Thought like half the region was introduced in gen 3 I swear.
Basically because the Gen 2 Pokemon were largely designed as an expansion roster of the original 151 rather than an entirely original and independent roster of its own, in line with GSC being conceived as more of a direct sequel to RGB. They clearly wanted people to continue using the OGs from RGBY including Johto still having things like Pidgey and Caterpie in the first routes and whatnot and just about all of the iconic Gen 1 Pokemon reprising their roles from before. The Gen 2 Pokemon were basically distributed in eccentric ways to show off new mechanics (breeding, mass outbreaks, time of day cycle, friendship, and so on and so forth) with several being rare spawns in both Johto and Kanto to give returning players an amazing sense of discovery when they found those rare new Pokemon, making it feel like they've expanded the greater knowledge of Pokemon since the original RGB. How well that intention actually worked in practice is another matter entirely, but yeah that's basically the gist of it.
Gen 3 had the first truly original and separate roster of Pokemon being a sort of soft reboot of the franchise. That said, I admit that part of me still intrinsically considers Slugma and Skarmory as honorary Hoenn/Gen 3 Pokemon, and also considers Mantine an honorary Gen 4 Pokemon in a way.
Gen 3 had the first truly original and separate roster of Pokemon being a sort of soft reboot of the franchise. That said, I admit that part of me still intrinsically considers Slugma and Skarmory as honorary Hoenn/Gen 3 Pokemon, and also considers Mantine an honorary Gen 4 Pokemon in a way.
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I think they just approached it completely different from how a chunk of the fanbase wanted them too: these are new, exotic Pokemon so they should be put in exotic or eccentric locales. It's basically the same logic as "we thought Pikachu was very cute, and people would want it, so we made it rare". Unfortunately for everyone, this is also the game that had two regions, several new ways of encountering and evolving Pokemon so the new guys got split across a lot of different avenues. If we'd stayed in the Spaceworld era (where several mechanics hadn't been implemented yet and it was all one big region rather than 2 distinct ones) things probably would have come across more even handed
It's also a point where they still prioritize things basically just existing for collection purposes so you get a huge overlap between "this pokemon is rare AND bad", which isn't super related to this but sure does make it stand out more.
They got better about this after future gens settled down their encounter methods but this is something they keep doing to varying degrees over the years. Gen 4 is probably most egregious, but Gen 7's encounter rates also come to mind.
Gen 9's probably the only gen that kind of avoids this issue because the majority of Pokemon are just out & about and the open nature of the game means that even "late-game" encounters have mid-game options depending on how you go through the region, low spawn rates aren't as bad because of the number of encounters you spawn around you and the only things truly locked off are the paradoxes (sans donphan). & I guess the Titans, technically.
It's also a point where they still prioritize things basically just existing for collection purposes so you get a huge overlap between "this pokemon is rare AND bad", which isn't super related to this but sure does make it stand out more.
They got better about this after future gens settled down their encounter methods but this is something they keep doing to varying degrees over the years. Gen 4 is probably most egregious, but Gen 7's encounter rates also come to mind.
Gen 9's probably the only gen that kind of avoids this issue because the majority of Pokemon are just out & about and the open nature of the game means that even "late-game" encounters have mid-game options depending on how you go through the region, low spawn rates aren't as bad because of the number of encounters you spawn around you and the only things truly locked off are the paradoxes (sans donphan). & I guess the Titans, technically.
Giving a seasonal theme to the genies is also brillant and perfect to be implemented in an Unova/Legends game but GF are cowards/s
Still a big fan of how they have expanded all the small legend trios one way or another except the Lake ones, who were just in LA, and the Tapus.
make them swagful.Speaking of PLA... What did they do to my boys Dialga and Palkia
not really a joke, i find origin dialga and palkia much cooler and interesting designs than origin giratina. the former two feel more intentionally designed to be offputting and tie in with the plot and lore (even tho the plot is dogshit ass lmfao). the concept of a god being transmuted and coming back wrong because of its believers wrong ideas rules, and they dont try to make the two still "cool". theyre forcing you out of your comfort zone and going yeah this thing is fucked up, look at it.
origin giratina is a giratina without legs. design hard carried by the platinum cutscene and for a beast of a twisted dimension its extemely conventionaly cool and not much else
Ok, I'm not gonna act like I completed that game, so I dunno the plot. Sounds like they aren't in their "Origin" forms. They should be called "Altered" if that's the case.
Either way, they look awful lmao.
Yeah hard agree with this. They seem so much more alien and incomprehensible, designed to live in a bizarre dimension we limited humans don't understand.
I think Origin Palkia particularly unsettles people because it's a centaur without arms - sort of seems unbalanced initially but there's a particular grace to it that takes a while to see.
Damn yes also this. Always much preferred Altered Giratina. Origin isn't totally bad but I find that I like it most in the abstract - like how in the Distortion World it flies past you occasionally but it's just a formless shadowy black shape. Much more evocative that way.
Altered Giratina just has so many neat little details. Especially the way it can "pin" back its wing spikes, very cool.
Something that’s also worth noting is GS’s long and somewhat rocky development. There were numerous Gen 2 Pokémon that were being tweaked, if not overhauled, right up until release (and even afterwards, as a few had color schemes and/or minor details changed between GS and Crystal), while there were others where it was unclear whether they were gonna be in the game at all until very late, which contributed to them being relegated to rare spawns, unorthodox methods the player needs to go out of their way to get, or Kanto.
I've brought it up before but, honestly, "Origin" never made sense for Giratina either. It was a form it took on to adjust to the Distortion World, a place it was banished to.
If anything that should be "Altered" form.
I've heard that theory brought up a few times but I look at Sneasel, Forretress & Slowking as counters to this.
Like Sneasel, this thing had been redesigned like 12 different times even to after the release. But they still put it on one of the most prominent boss characters in the game: the rival.
Forretress -and Pineco- was a super late addition and they were still figuring out its design & shtick a few months before release. Despite this, it manages to both be something available very early on and wound up on Koga's team. That's a pretty prominent placement in a game that as far as the fandom is concerned, does not use Gen 2 Pokemon in anything.
In contrast, Slowking was a Pokemon locked in for ages. There was a brief period where it was an evolution of Slowbro but they walked that back after a short while. GSC is also a Pokemon with 2 Psychic specialist bosses. Despite this Slowking was only on a single trainer's team, and it was a random trainer whose gimmick was having pokemon with "King" in their name.
To me I don't look at the rocky development and constant reshuffling of Pokemon and go "oh nooo we didn't plan this out at all, & we're out of time throw them into the margins of the game!!!". I see intentional decisions.
Why does Kanto have so many Pokemon in general? Because it's the second half of the game and they wanted you to keep encountering & discovering new Pokemon. (This also applies to a bunch of Gen 1 Pokemon in this game as well).
Were Yanma, Snubbull, Maril and Dunsparce locked behind swarms because they were late additions and they were so worried about being badly balanced they needed to make them rare? Orrrrr did they just think that a swarm of dragonflies was a cool visual, Snubbull & Marill were seen as a cute Pokemon that should be rare like their contemporaries in gen 1, and that the tsuchinoko Pokemon should by definition be rare normally with swarms being a way to have their cake & eat it to.
Were all the dark types thrown into Kanto because oops we didn' figure out where to put them....or did they just want all the dark types (except Umbreon) to be in the post game after you've fought them several times, in contrast to all the Steel types being available in Johto.
Was Slugma put randomly in Kanto & on Blaine's team to hide it being a late addition or did they put it there because they thought the Slug being on Cycling Road was a funny design decision and Blaine was a fire boss trainer who had to move gyms because of a volcano (dark humor).
Larvitar is in the very final dungeon of the game. To me it's because they wanted the "new dragonite" to be one of the last things you discovered and having the big imposing mountain dungeon is fitting thematically (even if you're seeing the tiny baby form).
And so on and so forth. I can still see a few Pokemon who maybe did get this treatment, but I can see the weird game developer logic for the majority especially when you start looking at Pokemon that had been around for ages.
Ok, I'm not gonna act like I completed that game, so I dunno the plot. Sounds like they aren't in their "Origin" forms. They should be called "Altered" if that's the case.
Either way, they look awful lmao.
like r_n said, origin is a bad term for all of them because their default forms is the original, including giratina. I wonder if they wanted to use origin in the context of turning into something more connected to an "original" and primordial power, giratina with the distorted dimension and dialga and palkia with arceus itself, instead of being the literal original form of them. still feels clunky though.
also imo intentional unsettleness and ugliness is such an amazing and cool as fuck design trait, thats really hard to master and shows the sauce that gamefreak has that a lot of people dont. its so easy to make your own cool epic dragon dog cat lizard pokemon or insert generic cute marketable design, which is why fakedexes are filled with them (though fakemon artists are usually way worse at making them feel less like toys and more like real critters like gamefreak does lol), but theres a reason these dexes have almost zero weird, unsettling, goofy or mixed concepts like real pokedexes does. its not an easy thing to do!
See my issue even if I agree with the aesthetics part is that they are literally called their true/original forms, both officially and in-game. They are supposed to be how they live in their native dimensions which are even described (trough Palkia's sounds more intetesting than Dialga's) so they ate their original forms while the others are how they adapt to the normal world/dimension.