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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
I mean yeah it is a joke, but it even has a dramatic close up of Lance as he says Oak's name and all, and he even shows up right before the Champion match instead of later. Considering Let'd Go was like the main game aided at new audiences, I don't think it's crazy to consider it an effective fake out on most new players and just a kind of unnecesary nod to us who know he was once planned to be a fight. If you did fight him in the postgame I would actually like it, but as it stands now it's just there.
Oh don't get me wrong, Title Defense and the very concept itself of setting up the very first League of the region is insanely good. And Kukui is the one Professor that because of his studies on moves makes sense he may also be a good Trainer (not to mention the entire Masked Royal thing).
Haur just falls flat to me because...well, I don't think you can just do the Blue twist again to begin with unless it's someone very similar to him in the sense of always being ahead the player. Hau is not that, and admitedly it isn't trying to be a real twist anyways, but it just feels like they swapped a very memorable moment just for the sake of changing things. Nemona works because she is the opposite of a twist and even Blue himself, since she is pretty much starting a new playthrough and putting herself at a disadvantage just so you are on equal terms. I would even argue I like Hop and his other doggo more because he has build up and realizes he wants to be a Professor anyways.
And while we are talking about Blue and Oak, I don't take it very seriously because it's gen 1 and it barely had a story, but taken a face value, Oak's lecture to him is pretty nonsensical. He speaks like if Blue falling to understand his Pokemon is some kind of huge flaw as a trainer that made him lose to the player. Is it tho? Even if it was for a very short amount of time he was THE best trainer. Is it really such a glaring and bad flaw if it manages to get you to be the literal second best one at around 10 years old? I don't think the message works well. I much prefer Silver losing to Lance and not getting over it (before Masters).
It was also probably on their mind since they were almost certainly already writing Leon as an explicit reference to the Player Character when they were updating USUM.
"I love all my alolan kids equally."
*10 minutes earlier*
"I don't care for Hau."
TBH Hau feels like filler in general. Lillie and Gladion have significant plot relevance and character arcs, Hau is mostly there to lose to you at key moments. Hop* sucks, but there's an arc there, he exists outside of his interactions with you. Hau just feels like they were checking a box. "Rival who gets Starter #2 and loses to the player at every opportunity".
*On topic for this thread, what genius authorized those two names for your rival in sequential generations?!
It gets worse.
When was THAT ever implied?
Man got to beat the whole Elite Four, helped Oak's research a ton, and the only reason he didn't hold the title longer was because the player was right behind him at that point in the game.
Given that Professor Oak has retired as a trainer and got called an oaf by Agatha or something, it could be Oak being senile and doesn’t really know what he’s talking about and was being innocently insensitive.It gets worse.
When was THAT ever implied?
Man got to beat the whole Elite Four, helped Oak's research a ton, and the only reason he didn't hold the title longer was because the player was right behind him at that point in the game.
I cannot help but feel bad for Blue either way, he did earned his braggings by proving himself to be Champion until the player came along.
This has always been the biggest farce in the game.
Pokemon is "Cockfighting, But For Kids." The whole premise is to just capture critters and force them into combat against each other. On the one hand, this is handwaved away and justified during the introductory scene with an explicit statement that "Pokemon love to fight." But on the other hand, Blue is scolded by Oak at the end of the game because he supposedly "doesn't care" about his Pokemon in the same way that the player does... when it's never once established that the two of them have done anything differently in their respective quests, at least when it concerns their Pokemon specifically. We never see Blue "mistreat" any of his Pokemon. It's never even implied. And there's not one single thing that the player has to do throughout the game to prove some kind of meaningful bond with his party. If anything, you're incentivized to shrewdly discard the deadweight on your team and optimize for battle success, much like Blue would do.
If RBY was serious at all about its themes, then it either wouldn't allow you to capture Mewtwo, or it'd punish you for doing so / reward you for declining the opportunity.
In yet another example of HGSS's translation being utterly abysmal, the way the Mail sidequest was done continues to annoy me more than a decade after the games were released. In the originals, the NPC in Goldenrod City gives the player a Spearow holding Mail to deliver to his friend, which reads:
"Dark Cave leads
to another road"
Nice and simple, and it's useful in that it provides the player with a tip they might not otherwise have realised.
In HGSS, the Mail instead reads:
"LETTER!
Thank you!
ADVENTURE
was fun, wasn't it?
ZUBAT was the one
thing I wanted to avoid..."
...I've read scribblings from toddlers that had a better grasp of English than this. Apparently it's only the English versions which render it so poorly, as in other languages the translation is more accurate to the original Japanese ("Thank you for your Mail. It was such an exciting adventure. I did not like ZUBAT, though..."). But it's still not saying anything interesting or useful!
In fairness, the clue from the mail isn't actually needed in Gen IV since the Pokegear map now openly shows that Dark Cave connects to Route 45 and 46, and even has a description which states that Dark Cave "runs beneath the Johto region". Considering that the NPC now gives out a TM which can be obtained elsewhere, and the gift Spearow has crappy fixed IVs and can't be shiny in Gen IV, they really made this sidequest worse in every conceivable way. Well done.
edit: y'know what, while I'm at it, other translation nitpicks I have with HGSS that irk me:
"Dark Cave leads
to another road"
Nice and simple, and it's useful in that it provides the player with a tip they might not otherwise have realised.
In HGSS, the Mail instead reads:
"LETTER!
Thank you!
ADVENTURE
was fun, wasn't it?
ZUBAT was the one
thing I wanted to avoid..."
...I've read scribblings from toddlers that had a better grasp of English than this. Apparently it's only the English versions which render it so poorly, as in other languages the translation is more accurate to the original Japanese ("Thank you for your Mail. It was such an exciting adventure. I did not like ZUBAT, though..."). But it's still not saying anything interesting or useful!
In fairness, the clue from the mail isn't actually needed in Gen IV since the Pokegear map now openly shows that Dark Cave connects to Route 45 and 46, and even has a description which states that Dark Cave "runs beneath the Johto region". Considering that the NPC now gives out a TM which can be obtained elsewhere, and the gift Spearow has crappy fixed IVs and can't be shiny in Gen IV, they really made this sidequest worse in every conceivable way. Well done.
edit: y'know what, while I'm at it, other translation nitpicks I have with HGSS that irk me:
- Eusine never mentioning Celadon City is his hometown. On the face of it it makes sense, he doesn't appear in Celadon in HGSS because the story is different. But why not just throw it in? He mentions being told about Suicune by his grandfather, which is cool. It's a small thing, but being told where NPCs are actually from makes the games feel that little bit more alive to me (and it's also an interesting tidbit that someone so obsessed with Johto legends isn't actually from there - further adds to how interconnected Kanto and Johto feel)
- Jasmine's woeful pre-battle dialogue.
"Thank you for your help at the Lighthouse... But this is different. Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm Jasmine, a Gym Leader. I use the... clang! Steel type! ...Do you know about the Steel type? They are very hard, cold, sharp, and really strong! Um... I'm not lying."
How on earth is she doing a "clang" noise exactly. Is she just saying it? If not, what on earth is that meant to sound like? I know they had to compensate for her no longer saying "it's a type that was recently discovered" but come on. You couldn't write anything better than this?
- Clair's Dragonbreath gag being lost and replaced with... whatever the hell this is.
II: "That contains DragonBreath. No, it doesn't have anything to do with my breath. If you don't want it, you don't have to take it."
IV: "That contains Dragon Pulse. Well, Dragon Pulse is kind of... umm... never mind! It's a huge energy of some kind. If you don't want it, you don't have to take it."
Her Gen II quote is kind of funny, and quite in-character because she already sounds annoyed at the player - like she's anticipating the comment. Her Gen IV one is just... nothing, and sounds way more flustered and embarrassed than she typically does. Even in defeat she largely keeps her arrogance and composure, but here she sounds more like Whitney than herself.
- In what's turning into a dismal trend, Karen is yet another boss who loses a lot of her edge and specificity. How so?
II: "I am Karen of the Elite Four. You're <name>? How amusing. I love Dark-type Pokémon. I find their wild, tough image to be so appealing. And they're so strong. Think you can take them? Just try to entertain me. Let's go."
IV: "I am Karen of the Elite Four. You're <name>? How amusing. I love Dark-type Pokémon. I'm known for my overpowering tactics. Think you can take them? Just try to entertain me. Let's go."
Hey Karen, why do you love Dark-types so much? Never mind, guess it's not important. It's not that "I'm known for my overpowering tactics" is a bad line per se, it's just so utterly generic. For a character who doesn't appear anywhere outside of the Pokemon League (which is another conversation) it'd be nice to get a sense of you beyond "I am strong".
- Speaking of generic lines, they're given to a lot of important NPCs but Bugsy has a particular stinker:
"I came to Kanto to look for Bug-type Pokémon, so I can become a stronger Bug-type Pokémon Trainer! Hey why don't we swap phone numbers?"
You came to look for Bug-type Pokemon so you can become a stronger Bug-type Pokemon Trainer? Shut up, I'd never have guessed.
It's not like there aren't some interesting bits of characterisation in HGSS: Morty, Janine, Sabrina, and the Kimono Girls all get some good bits of dialogue. But in the main, they're flat and uninteresting ones like this. What I find most frustrating is that it literally takes so little imagination for this to be better... because literally anything would have been more interesting than this. Here are a few alternatives right off the top of my head:
"Hi, <name>! Viridian Forest is known all over the world as a haven for rare Bug-types. I come here all the time to look for Pokemon I haven't caught yet."
"To be a true Bug-type expert, I need to catalogue the differences between the Bug-type Pokemon found in Kanto and Johto. It's fascinating how the Bug-type Pokemon found in different regions can vary so much."
"I can't just look for Bug-type Pokemon in Johto if I want to be an expert on Bug-types, so I've come out to Kanto instead. Maybe my research will eventually take me to all sorts of other regions!"
- Silver being appallingly written. I mean, you all know this one already but what the hell, it's a good post and I feel like linking to it for old times' sake.
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I feel like they changed it because it was genuinely weird for her to cite how "strong" Dark-types are as a reason why she loves them only to then do her "Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people" schtick after being defeated. Could've kept the "wild, tough image" part, although I'm honestly not a big fan of that either. As you say, though, it's not hard to come up with something serviceable that breathes a bit of life into the character.
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Obviously, she takes a wrench out of hammerspace to make the clang noise.
The thing about the mail message is that it's the result of the message having to get mangled though the preexisting Gen 4 "easy chat" system as mail cannot be freely typed in gens 4 and 5 like it could in 2 and 3.
Karen and Jasmine's are both direct carry overs from the Japanese dialogue for those scenes, short of just making up entirely new dialogue there wasn't much they could do.
Idk, I don't think it's that weird. Obviously she thinks they're strong because she likes them, and every type specialist hypes up their chosen specialty ("Dragons are the best!", "I love Grass-types!", etc). Broadly speaking all of the types have their strengths and weaknesses, so she's clearly not saying "objectively Dark is the strongest type". When Lance says "dragons are virtually undefeatable" it's plainly a boast rather than a statement of fact.
The strong Pokemon/weak Pokemon line after is, imo, less about types and more about image. Silver, for instance, says "I can get better Pokemon" and all of his team are those which look powerful, rare, or exotic - Alakazam and Gengar and Magneton are all objectively great; Sneasel isn't exactly a top-tier species, but he steals it from the Pokemaniac because it's rare and the guy bragged about it. He didn't take Shuckle, though, which speaks volumes imo: it's a Pokemon I personally love, but it's not exactly visually awe-inspiring.
One could even interpret Karen calling Dark-types "strong" as something of a pretense she puts up to test the player, and the player passes the test because she acknowledges "I like your style. You understand what's important".
Sure, but that's what a skilled translator is for: if something doesn't quite work as a 1:1 equivalent, you alter it a bit to make it sound more natural (this is why jokes are rarely funny when translated, as double-meanings are typically lost). A lot of the phrasing I highlight in the post about Silver shows why this is necessary, his speech seems to be basically transliterated but it leads to very awkward and unnatural turns of phrase (ex: "no need to be alert" vs "no need to panic").
Changing or not including the clang line for Jasmine would have caused issues down the line though. It is referenced repeatedly later on, both in all of her intro lines in the PWT and in Masters. Hell, it's voiced in Masters, and yes she does just say clang. It basically becomes kind of her catchphrase.
Clair's bit is just as nonsense in Japanese as it is in English, she still just gets flustered for no reason there too.
なかに はいっているのは
りゅうのはどう
はどう っていうのは……
もう！ なんでも いいじゃない！
とにかく すごいエネルギー なのよ！
いらないなら むりして
もっていかなくても いいのよ！
Fair enough, wasn't aware that'd been adopted as her catchphrase in later games. Bizarre but what can you do.
Something interesting about HGSS localization, they were the first Pokemon games where they changed translators. From RB to Platinum it was Nob Ogasawara who was in charge, so it's no surprise to notice those small diferences within the remake. Looking up the 2 new translators of HGSS, that game was one of their earliest roles...
I mean, they wouldn't have used "Clang!" as her catchphrase in PWT/Masters if they didn't have it as her in-game dialogue, lol.
Out of curiosity, does she use an onomatopoeia in Japanese, too?
I actually have a friend who speaks Japanese fluently and asked him about the current thread topic. Turns out she basically does. Also have some other insight.
Letters in Gen IV iirc are written using that "dictionary system" that were in every game from RSE up to I think B2W2, so I think this is more of a matter of the dictionary system fitting Japanese as a language better than English. No sane person would write letters like this in either language but it's done to provide a communication system in a game for kids that doesn't end in them getting groomed by pedophiles.
[pic of mail in the original game]
[pic of mail translation]
"... Thank you for everything at the lighthouse. But battles are a different matter.
Allow me to re-introduce myself.
I am Gym Leader Mikan (Jasmine). I use...
Schwing!!
S... Steel type Pokemon....
Do you know steel type Pokemon?
They're very, very sturdy and cold and sharp and s-strong! I'm serious!"
[pic of Jasmine's Japanese dialogue]
Going off of what I do see though it seems like it's just an unfortunate matter of sticking too closely to the original script, or at least in the case of the letter a game mechanic not translating over very well
[pic of mail in the original game]
[pic of mail translation]
"... Thank you for everything at the lighthouse. But battles are a different matter.
Allow me to re-introduce myself.
I am Gym Leader Mikan (Jasmine). I use...
Schwing!!
S... Steel type Pokemon....
Do you know steel type Pokemon?
They're very, very sturdy and cold and sharp and s-strong! I'm serious!"
[pic of Jasmine's Japanese dialogue]
Going off of what I do see though it seems like it's just an unfortunate matter of sticking too closely to the original script, or at least in the case of the letter a game mechanic not translating over very well
Basically, Quentin's issues stem from the translation being too close to the original script without any localization. I personally suspect that the original script in GSC was very different in the original Japanese and had to change a lot when localized due to text space constraints common in cartridge games prior to the GBA/DS era.
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I kind of feel like her usage of "Clang!" (et. al.) is a little forced to give her more of a connection to her chosen type, but going off of the rest of her dialogue (and as a Masters player, where it's voiced), it kind of works? It's dorky and awkward, but Jasmine is pretty quiet and reserved, and going out of her way to say something like that shows to me that they (meaning Steel-type Pokémon) are something she's passionate about.
I now wonder if the clang think is kept in the Spanish translation because I swear I didn't know about this. I now like Jasmine a lot more. It's stupid but whatever that noise she is making (or just saying the word, I dunno what is more ridiculous) already gives her a lot more personality because it doesn't fit her initial impression at all. I don't recall seeing it in Masters either but then again I'm not even sure if I ever used her...
Never felt too strongly about her before tbh. The whole "she used to specialize in another type before Steel was discovered" said in some media is interesting background, but as a character she has always been just there for me. Not bad, just you know, standard early gens gym leader.
Never felt too strongly about her before tbh. The whole "she used to specialize in another type before Steel was discovered" said in some media is interesting background, but as a character she has always been just there for me. Not bad, just you know, standard early gens gym leader.
I mean, look, it's perfectly possible to say the word "clang!" in a sentence and make it sound good.
Maybe my confusion just arose from the fact that it's harder to judge what something sounds like when you're only reading it. It's just rather out of place in what she says. It'd be like me going "I use the... sizzle sizzle sizzle! ...Fire-type!"
Maybe my confusion just arose from the fact that it's harder to judge what something sounds like when you're only reading it. It's just rather out of place in what she says. It'd be like me going "I use the... sizzle sizzle sizzle! ...Fire-type!"
Should have just made it her verbal tic where she ends every sentence with Clang!
This is actually what I like least about her character, because the idea that Steel-Type had to be discovered is absurd. It’s far more sensible to just retcon the type in like “oh yeah I guess Kanto didn’t have (m)any Steel-Type Pokémon during Red/Blue so it never came up”. It did have Magnemite family but if they were the only resident Steel-Type Pokémon, it’s kinda reasonable for it to be difficult to discern the line between “Steel-Type energy traits” and just Magnemite traits because there were no other Steel-Types around to compare and draw a pattern with.
The difference is that means the metaphysical player is “discovering” Steel-Type, because the last game in the entry wasn’t set in a place with it, but it maintains world integrity. It’s more rational to think that in Johto Steel- and Dark-Type Pokémon are just known about and always were, and with the greater connection between Johto and Kanto caused by the new linking railway those species have begun migrating alongside humans by the time of the Johto games.
Mostly as far as the Steel-Type is concerned. Because it’s such an in your face, obvious type. In case you were unsure, Steel-Type Pokemon are the Pokémon made of metal. They get away with some of it, since many of the Gen 2 Steel-Types use the Metal Coat and trading which could be a discovery, but Forretress and Skarmory still exist as does Magnemite, that’s enough species to go “oh huh all these metal mons exist, maybe being made of metal means they share properties”.
Dark-Type obviously has some goofiness too (biting your opponent goes from not being able to hit Gengar to being SE against it overnight) but that feels like understandable mechanical noise. “Discovering” Steel-Type is a bigger narrative hole than that, Pineco is in half the trees in the region you can’t tell me no one in Johto saw one evolve earlier than 2 years ago.
Not saying that I disagree at all, the entire concept of discovering new types in-universe is dumb and should never be mentioned that directly (then again there are things that are hard to suggest otherwise like your Jigglipuff now being a menace for Dragons) but if we need to have the concept at all I do find it kinda amusing she found her passion in the new type.
Well of course it would be better to just retcon them in, but isn't this the same game that presented Pokemon eggs as if they were a brand new scientific discovery? As if it's something that never previously came up in-universe?
This franchise just does not generally do a competent job of integrating new gameplay mechanics without also adding in awkward implications for world-building. SV places so much importance on sandwiches that a completely inconsequential sandwich that the player's mom makes at the start of the game is for some reason referenced much later as if it's a vital component of the story.
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