I always thought that was just a reference to Kaiju films, with Duraludon being a building and Tyranitar is Godzilla.
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
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I think middle stage Pokemon within three-stage lines often occupy a weird space, because you're right, middle stage starters (and middle stage mons as a whole) are generally a lot less popular than the first and final forms of a given three-stage line. They're sandwiched between what is often a cute first stage and a badass/standout final stage of the evolutionary line. Starters are no exception to this: the first form starters are the ambassadors of a given region and are designed to be cute, likable, and to appeal to kids as something that is endearing to them. And then the final form is often badass or otherwise very strong looking in some way or another, because that's the final form and is meant to be a strong Pokemon. Starter final forms often look big, powerful, and standout so as to make them feel like powerhouses that kick butt. Even in later generations where you have arguably more feminine leaning Pokemon like Delphox, Meowscarada, and Primarina, they still have that vibe that they can absolutely deliver in combat and have standout, striking designs: Delphox is a wicked mage, Primarina is a beautiful songstress, and whatnot.
And oftentimes, because of this, middle forms are often not much to write home about. There's not much interesting to look at there. They're neither particularly cute nor very outstandingly cool. There are a few middle stages who are popular, like Braixen, Grovyle, and Raboot, but those are largely exceptions, not the rule.
At the same time, the middle stage is often the key to the success of three stage families and why they can work as a singular evolution family. It is because of the middle stage that a designer can take two extremely different designs, oftentimes at the basic level a very cute first stage and a very badass final stage, and bridge them together. Three-stage lines have that freedom from both a gameplay and a design standpoint where the first and third stages of the line can stand further apart, because they have that middle stage to be the bridge between them. Two-stage evolutionary families do not have this freedom, because the first stage is the first stage and the second stage is the final stage, so design wise they need to be closer to each other and more directly cohesive with each other to work as an evolutionary line. With a three-stage line, you can have an unevolved form and the fully evolved form be more drastically different from each other, and yet they still work because they have that in-between middle form to bridge them together into a singular evolution line.
Like we've been talking about the Sobble line, for instance, and the line's progression works because of Drizzile. Sobble and Inteleon are on pretty opposite extremes from each other despite sharing the same chameleon who can turn invisible trait, but they can be a singular evolution line because of Drizzile. Drizzile serves as that bridge that can connect the two into a singular evolution line. Drizzile's traits are more in-between of Sobble and Inteleon, allowing the designers to bridge the two designs together. Starters in general can have a greater difference between the first and final forms thanks to the middle stage. They can be more extreme in a vacuum and between each other thanks to that middle form to bridge the gap.
In particular starters benefit most from this capacity of design from being a three-stage line because of their specific purpose in the grand scheme of things. They are presented as a Trainer's very first Pokemon, their main friend and partner, who grows with them over the course of the journey and sticks with them from beginning to end. The first form is a cute, likable first stage that is very easy to bond with, and then as they evolve they end up as the final form which is a strong battler and looks cool, meaning they're something a Trainer who at this point of their journey can absolutely kick butt with, as their loyal partner who has been with them through thick and thin, their absolute most trusted partner. From a gameplay standpoint, this also benefits their purpose, as they start off a capable, but not very strong Pokemon early on, but they evolve once and then gain a power jump good enough to allow them to fight during the early-mid game, and then they evolve again in the 30s and are now a fully evolved, powerful Pokemon that can be strong enough to take on anything.
From a design standpoint, starters are designed to be standout for this reason, and so they can have a very cute, lovable first stage for marketing purposes and then a powerful badass final stage that looks cool, with that middle form bridging that gap. So you're right, independent designs with an in-between form to bridge them is a common method, and the way three-stage evolutionary families are structured means that the middle form is that most important component: because it allows designers to bridge two more extreme designs together.
You can't go directly from say, Charmander to Charizard, or say, Frigibax to Baxcalibur, or Axew to Haxorus for instance. The design gap between them is too wide, and gameplay wise the base stat difference is too drastic. But they have those in-between stages that, while not very interesting designs in a vacuum, allow the designers to make those base and final stages that stand further apart from each other yet still form a singular evolution family. This kind of design freedom isn't something they can do with a two-stage family, because the progression is one-time and direct from unevolved to fully evolved. Three-stage families on the other hand have more liberties from a design standpoint in that regard.
It is, but still not shown directly in game. It's a general issue with flavor text noting rivalries, but most mechanics don't really show it well. Seviper attacking Zangoose in wild doubles is rare, and easy to miss
Funny enough, Aggron should hate Tyranitar for ruining the landscape, but this is never directly stated
Here's a simple question. What are the 4 moves that a wild Level 12 Beautifly from Eterna Forest has in Brilliant Diamond? The simple answer would be to check a learnset online, but depending on your choice of source, you will get different answers for the latest 4 moves in the learnset at Level 12 because of the broken telephone effect of the internet.
If you picked pokemondb, you would see that it is Poison Sting/String Shot/Tackle/Absorb. This is because pokemondb arranges moves learned at the same level in alphabetical order instead of their internal order on all their pages.
If you picked Bulbapedia, you would have String Shot/Poison Sting/Bug Bite/Absorb. This is because bulbapedia is vulnerable to random acts of vandalism due to it being editable to the public.
If you picked rankedboost, you get Gust/Absorb since the site hasn't been updated after they put it up immediately for clicks on release and so they still have the 1.0.0 Beautifly learnset and have no info on the 1.1.0 learnset changes.
The pokemon wikia doesn't even have Gen 8 listings. I don't know why this is a thing because it seems like it's copied everything from bulbapedia.
The correct answer is Harden/Poison Sting/Bug Bite/Absorb, which can be found on serebii and surprisingly game8 even though I kind of treat it as the same type of site as rankedboost in just putting pages up for clicks. This can also be verified with the primary source of the move dump pastebins, but those don't show up highly for learnset results online and if you didn't know the sites could be wrong then you wouldn't think to verify.
So I guess I'm annoyed at how inconsistent finding specific information on the internet like this can be because of how these sites all approach the same thing differently, and how you could be unaware that it's wrong if you only check one source or haven't checked it ingame for yourself. It may not really matter in most situations, but in this case it is something real you can see and use in an ingame encounter. I only noticed this because I have a picture of that Beautifly from when I caught it ingame.
Also, coming back to Bulbapedia on a sidenote since it's a different case being written by the public and not just the site owner like the other examples. In theory it's open for anyone to counter edit and fix this info, but this edit has been there since November 27 2021 after an attempted undo to fix it, probably because nobody would expect or notice Beautifly's level 1 move order to be inaccurate compared to something more visible at the top of the page like changing what level Drifloon evolves at. However, it turns out that this user was doing the same thing to other pages at the time and people have noticed this, yet to this day they are still changing random minor info to be wrong like doing the same level 1 move reordering on Shedinja's page or changing the level Natu learns Guard Swap at among other things, so that's what I'm annoyed at now.
If you picked pokemondb, you would see that it is Poison Sting/String Shot/Tackle/Absorb. This is because pokemondb arranges moves learned at the same level in alphabetical order instead of their internal order on all their pages.
If you picked Bulbapedia, you would have String Shot/Poison Sting/Bug Bite/Absorb. This is because bulbapedia is vulnerable to random acts of vandalism due to it being editable to the public.
If you picked rankedboost, you get Gust/Absorb since the site hasn't been updated after they put it up immediately for clicks on release and so they still have the 1.0.0 Beautifly learnset and have no info on the 1.1.0 learnset changes.
The pokemon wikia doesn't even have Gen 8 listings. I don't know why this is a thing because it seems like it's copied everything from bulbapedia.
The correct answer is Harden/Poison Sting/Bug Bite/Absorb, which can be found on serebii and surprisingly game8 even though I kind of treat it as the same type of site as rankedboost in just putting pages up for clicks. This can also be verified with the primary source of the move dump pastebins, but those don't show up highly for learnset results online and if you didn't know the sites could be wrong then you wouldn't think to verify.
So I guess I'm annoyed at how inconsistent finding specific information on the internet like this can be because of how these sites all approach the same thing differently, and how you could be unaware that it's wrong if you only check one source or haven't checked it ingame for yourself. It may not really matter in most situations, but in this case it is something real you can see and use in an ingame encounter. I only noticed this because I have a picture of that Beautifly from when I caught it ingame.
Also, coming back to Bulbapedia on a sidenote since it's a different case being written by the public and not just the site owner like the other examples. In theory it's open for anyone to counter edit and fix this info, but this edit has been there since November 27 2021 after an attempted undo to fix it, probably because nobody would expect or notice Beautifly's level 1 move order to be inaccurate compared to something more visible at the top of the page like changing what level Drifloon evolves at. However, it turns out that this user was doing the same thing to other pages at the time and people have noticed this, yet to this day they are still changing random minor info to be wrong like doing the same level 1 move reordering on Shedinja's page or changing the level Natu learns Guard Swap at among other things, so that's what I'm annoyed at now.
I am glad I stayed off twitter, perfect example of people being absolute twats over practically nothing. (shockingly not an art connoisseur here)
You don't gotta be an art connoisseur to think it's bad for information databases to upload mangled versions of art instead of the official art which is the actual information they're supposed to be cataloging in the first place.
Sorry for the double post but I don't think edits send pings.
That vandal is MaahirMomtaz12 and he's here on Smogon. If you want to air any grievances about him, you can do so directly to his face.
Oh yes the Arceus one is definitely horrible (though I myself likely wouldn’t notice it unless previously told/specifically looking for its face). I definitely agree they shouldn’t be editing the original art, I don’t want any confusion there, I was talking about the absolutely toxic comments section. Even some of the original blokes comments, you’d think someone stole his car or house the way they all carry on.
This has to be grounds for an infringement lawsuit right? I mean even the audacity of the name ffs.
I just hope Pokemon’s lawyers read this thread.
While "Lucas" is certainly an incredible rip-off, it is not infringing on Nintendo. The design has distinct aspects in coloration and silhouette.
OTOH, players of Bloodline: Heroes of Lithas have grounds for a false advertising case, as Lucas, much like the scantily clad women of Evony's ads, does not actually appear in the game.
Pretty sure The Pokémon Company is aware of it, considering it has been meme'd all over social media.
When I first saw those memes, I actually thought it was a viral fanart of Lucario lol
Apparently, SV renders the entire skybox and ocean at all times. And they're both MASSIVE compared to how big they would need to be. Which is why SV is so laggy.
Gamefreak, HIRE SOME PROGRAMMERS.
Gamefreak, HIRE SOME PROGRAMMERS.
Actually, would they have been able to change it? Gen V did have DLC in the form of skins for your C-Gear and new Musicals. Nothing complex, and they planned for this stuff so programmed a space for it to fill and the gam to use. Still, it's something that's loaded onto the cart, so it shows they can "alter" cart data, so maybe they could change the names of the Moves had they done so in V?
While I agree that a lot more focus is put into the Basic and Final stages (and are designed ahead of the Middle stage), I don't think that means GF throws the Middle stages table scraps. No, all of them clearly have a different designing philosophy. Basic and Final are similar are they're focused upon "appeal", BUT who they're appealing too is what makes them different.
Basic stage is probably the most strict and "made by committee"; THESE are going to be the FACES of the Gen AND are going to be the first Pokemon the player gets in the game. That last point I want to emphasize as, while to us that doesn't sound like a big deal, remember this: Every Pokemon game is someone's first Pokemon game. They do not want the first Pokemon the player gets to be something they'll be disappointed in using. Therefore, they also want to make the Starter look appealing as possible to any gender and possible any age. It's very likely that's why there's no way of telling what "direction" a Starter will go from its Basic stage, they're made to be as general as possible for max appeal range. So they're designed to just be "a cat", "a croc", "a duck", "a monkey", "a rabbit", "a chameleon", "an owl", "a seal", etc. with aspects of their Type. GF do assign "personalities" to the designs, but there's no set group, all you could ever guess is that each will be distinct from its fellow gen Starters. The Basic Starters are a group a kid can look at and at least for one of them think: "Me and this creature can be best friends"!
Final stage I can see being more "personalized". No doubt still mad by a group, but this is where one of the team member's vision can stand out and become the basis with everyone else adding onto it. Experimentation is likely also more allowed in order to get to the point where they can decide a definite theme for the Final stage. They are going for appeal, but the appeal is more on giving the sense your Pokemon has achieved a form of mastery. You look at it and see a mature, powerful, and fully capable fighter who has their own style of battling they're a master of. While the Basic stages are going to be the "face" of the gen, the Final stages act like a "backbone" to their reputation. Likewise, the friendly appeal of the Basic stage has the bond carry up to the Final stage; whereas you may have just been given the Final from the get-go and not like it, having begun from the Basic stage you have seen and "guided" its progression to the strong Final stage giving you an appreciation for it. And this doesn't hurt with merch sales when they do use the Final stages such as in the TCG, a plush, or I think at some point during the gen they have a set of merch solely focused on showing how cool the Final stages are and put them on a batch of stuff.
And so, we now come to the Middle stage. As we've discussed, they have the tough job. Their first goal isn't appeal, their first goal is connecting the generalized Basic stage to the stylized Final stage. BUT, here's the kicker: the second goal is making it appealing. Yes, they do want the Middle stage to be appealing. Why would they make a Pokemon they weren't satisfied with? So, because of this, the Middle stage simply isn't just the Basic Stage but it picked up the hobby of the Final stage. No, the Middle stage needs its own thing. Sometimes it would be something which smoothly connects the Basic and Final stages together, sometimes they use behaviors and/or special trait of the family to come up with their own thing (and adding a bit of "awkward teenage phase" aspects). Eitherway, though it likely won't be used much to promote or sell merch, it needs that appeal for a specific reason: to continue that bond the player formed with the Basic stage. The general animal you picked has reached the next phase of its development, you can even call it life cycle, and is now starting to show more of its personality than before; and in some cases even changing from how many legs it stands on. And then there's the additional "hobby/trait" it has picked up, the first signs of what the Final stage will bring. It's sort of like a mystery, meant to further invest the player into their Starter as you see how this Middle stage and its behavior and quirks will develop into the Final stage. If the Middle stage was just the Basic stage with aspects of the Final stage, there would be no appeal whatsoever, so further investment, you know where it's going and the Middle stage serves nothing but a temporary power bump; and worst it may not fully prepare you for the Final stage or the change is enough to dissuade you from it. But because Middle stages are unique, even if you don't like the Middle stage, you'll still keep with it as you want to see what the Final stage is and how it connects altogether.
Final stage I can see being more "personalized". No doubt still mad by a group, but this is where one of the team member's vision can stand out and become the basis with everyone else adding onto it. Experimentation is likely also more allowed in order to get to the point where they can decide a definite theme for the Final stage. They are going for appeal, but the appeal is more on giving the sense your Pokemon has achieved a form of mastery. You look at it and see a mature, powerful, and fully capable fighter who has their own style of battling they're a master of. While the Basic stages are going to be the "face" of the gen, the Final stages act like a "backbone" to their reputation. Likewise, the friendly appeal of the Basic stage has the bond carry up to the Final stage; whereas you may have just been given the Final from the get-go and not like it, having begun from the Basic stage you have seen and "guided" its progression to the strong Final stage giving you an appreciation for it. And this doesn't hurt with merch sales when they do use the Final stages such as in the TCG, a plush, or I think at some point during the gen they have a set of merch solely focused on showing how cool the Final stages are and put them on a batch of stuff.
And so, we now come to the Middle stage. As we've discussed, they have the tough job. Their first goal isn't appeal, their first goal is connecting the generalized Basic stage to the stylized Final stage. BUT, here's the kicker: the second goal is making it appealing. Yes, they do want the Middle stage to be appealing. Why would they make a Pokemon they weren't satisfied with? So, because of this, the Middle stage simply isn't just the Basic Stage but it picked up the hobby of the Final stage. No, the Middle stage needs its own thing. Sometimes it would be something which smoothly connects the Basic and Final stages together, sometimes they use behaviors and/or special trait of the family to come up with their own thing (and adding a bit of "awkward teenage phase" aspects). Eitherway, though it likely won't be used much to promote or sell merch, it needs that appeal for a specific reason: to continue that bond the player formed with the Basic stage. The general animal you picked has reached the next phase of its development, you can even call it life cycle, and is now starting to show more of its personality than before; and in some cases even changing from how many legs it stands on. And then there's the additional "hobby/trait" it has picked up, the first signs of what the Final stage will bring. It's sort of like a mystery, meant to further invest the player into their Starter as you see how this Middle stage and its behavior and quirks will develop into the Final stage. If the Middle stage was just the Basic stage with aspects of the Final stage, there would be no appeal whatsoever, so further investment, you know where it's going and the Middle stage serves nothing but a temporary power bump; and worst it may not fully prepare you for the Final stage or the change is enough to dissuade you from it. But because Middle stages are unique, even if you don't like the Middle stage, you'll still keep with it as you want to see what the Final stage is and how it connects altogether.
Tl;dr:
- Basic stage is strictly made to be a generalized animal so that it gives off friendly vibes and can be used as a mascot.
- Final stage is likely allowed to experiment a bit so that it could be a cool and powerful mature stage, fully mastering its craft.
- Middle stage not only connects Basic and Final stage together but it also meant to keep you invested as you wonder how this stage connects to its Final stage. It's appeal is the unique identity that was crafted for it from its other two stages.
I would dive into how this idea works with every Starter, but I just want to get to commenting on some other stuff.
It's an interesting aspect of world building: introducing ideas and concepts which ultimately go unused in the initial release of the thing. Pokemon is not the only franchise which does this, far from it: Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, etc..
When you make an entire land, let alone world, filled with deep lore & mysteries, unique characters & places, and detailed mechanics & concepts, there's going to be little things here and there that gets a mentioned but other than that is completely a non-issue. It "exists", but for the purpose of the story we're experiencing, be it character driven or we're controlling an avatar to an end goal, it's not important. It's meant to give a sense of life to a fictional world, that there a things going on everywhere you're not involved with nor have a reason to be. Yes, Tyranitar and Daruladon are rivals and there are places where the two battling it out for territory... but it was just decided in the games we've gotten that interaction isn't needed to be shown.
Now, that doesn't mean it won't be shown later. For example, Seviper & Zangoose's rivalry was also just dex fodder for the most part; yes they had the anime and manga do the interaction but it wasn't a major thing and might as well not existed in the games. It wasn't until XY when they came up with the idea for Horde Battles and had a fun idea: Have a Horde Battle with Zangoose and Seviper and program them to fight each other instead of the player, as if you're walking into a fierce rival dispute! A random Dex fodder suddenly becomes a fun interaction years later. With them constantly improving the Pokemon in the overworld, maybe one day we will be exploring a canyon or mountain side and run into a Tyranitar and Daruladon dishing it out and we have the option of letting it play out (and challenging the winner) or interrupting and initiating a Double Battle where the two are still fighting each other and ignoring the player's Pokemon.
And in the meanwhile, we also still have fan content, be it fanfiction or fan art. You want Tyranitar VS Daruladon, here ya go:
Actually, if Nintendo's lawyer put up a good argument they can probably win a trademark infringement lawsuit (not only is the design and color scheme fairly close to Lucario, but also the name: Lucas/Lucario). Also doesn't matter if Lucas is in the game or not, they're using it to advertise the game and draw-in players (players who would presumably give them money at some point), therefore Lucas is getting monetary gain whether its obtainable or not.
But they're not going to sue because there's no point to. The fact it's a joke on the internet is enough proof no one is taking it seriously so it's very likely not getting them any additional players or money. Even if Nintendo wins, they likely would end up just spending more money on paying their lawyers than what they would get having this single ad of a ridiculed rip-off that's not in the game taken down.
I guess the players of Bloodline can set up a class action lawsuit if they want, but at this point the makers of the game could probably win by just admitting "we're just mobile game trash and all our players know that or are kidding themselves".
Oh it can't be that bad... WHY IS THE OCEAN AND SKYBOX THAT BIG?!?!?!
Also, no tumblr, I don't want to sign in. I just want to read the article (which isn't written by you) and take a glimpse at the comments.
I'll add that this problem becomes a lot more noticeable in romhacks/fangames which go up to level 100. The differences in EXP required to level up blow up massively between level 70 and 100 because the requirements grow cubically.
This also makes leveling up slow down massively after level 70 or so...
...which doesn't really get noticed because most canon games don't go much beyond that point, even in postgame content.
That also bothers me. Except for in BW, most E4/Champion battles are around the mid-60s. It seems really weird to be at the end of the main story while only 2/3 of the way through the level cap. There isn't really a massive amount of postgame story that would justify needing so much room to spare, even the highest level postgame battles tend cap out around the mid-70s (except for Mt. Silver Red and some Gen 5 rematch battles).
This is matched by the fact that most Pokemon don't learn any new moves after the mid-60s (and for those that do, usually it's a repeat or a copy of a Heart Scale move). The main exception is with some Gen 5 Pokemon due to the abnormally high evolution levels (which causes problems in games with more typical levels).
Is there any reason why they couldn't have designed everything to go closer to the level cap (including making it not as onerous to level up at high levels)? Or set the level cap to 50 originally and squeezed everything to fit? I guess the ability to massively overlevel compensates for the lack of tutorials/QoL features in the earlier games but at this point it feels like a relic.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Y'know, something just occurred to me... in HGSS, Professor Elm's aide says that Silver came back and offered to return his starter but Elm said nah. Ah, character development! That's nice.
But... that's not the only Pokemon he stole. Apparently he forgot to go back to Cianwood and offer Kirk/Mania his Sneasel back, too.
But... that's not the only Pokemon he stole. Apparently he forgot to go back to Cianwood and offer Kirk/Mania his Sneasel back, too.
That's a small detail that we almost forgot. Kirk is the guy who lent you Shuckle right?
It doesn't tell us what Pokémon did Silver extort from Kirk, but the conclusion is that a Sneasel is added to Silver team later on?Cianwood City's Bulbapedia page said:
*Checks his team on Goldenrod battle*
Yes it is.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Yeah he makes a big deal out of being a Pokemaniac with ultra-rare Pokemon (which in Johto Shuckle and Sneasel both genuinely are, amusingly) but it's Sneasel for sure. It's quite funny that the implication is that Silver took one look at Shuckle and went "...yeah, no."
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Especially weird because if I recall, didn't Sand Rush give the user immunity to the Weather if they didn't have a naturally immune typing? Slush Rush apparently didn't do the same for Hail, but it's just generally weird inconsistencies with resisting the Weather chip from Weather-boosted abilities.
the weirder is that sand rush and slush rush do givewather immunity
I think it makes some sense. Sandstream & Snow Warning are summoning the weather, and you kind of get a boost for that, but you're not necessarily using the weather.
The various Sand (Force, Rush, Veil) and Hail (Ice Body, Snow Cloak) abilities use the weather, so since they want to encourage that usage they gain immunity. You'll note most of these (Snow Cloak is only on Ice types) also went to Pokemon who weren't otherwise immune, so that definitely seemed purposeful.
Except Slush Rush, for some reason. Slush Rush not giving the immunity feels like an oversight
The various Sand (Force, Rush, Veil) and Hail (Ice Body, Snow Cloak) abilities use the weather, so since they want to encourage that usage they gain immunity. You'll note most of these (Snow Cloak is only on Ice types) also went to Pokemon who weren't otherwise immune, so that definitely seemed purposeful.
Except Slush Rush, for some reason. Slush Rush not giving the immunity feels like an oversight
It makes me wonder why they didn't have other types using different abilities. Sand Rush has a decent few non-Sand-type users by comparison, I wonder why no Snow-using non-Ice Types have been tried (like maybe Sneasler or Winter-Form Sawsbuck could get Slush Rush or Snow Cloak or something) in the same vein.