Little things you like about Pokémon

[TMan87]

Speaking of, can we appreciate how antagonistic teams have evolved beyond "we're evil and we want to control the world because stuff" recently?
It started with Gen V. B/W introduced Team Plasma, a bunch of people who, for some, were really convinced they were trying to better the life of several Pokémon. Well, the figurehead still wants power and control, but the Sages' side story brings a bit of additional context to it.
BW2 brought the split between Plasma and Neo Team Plasma, with the former being reformed and truly trying their best, while the latter basically doubled down on their villainy. Seeing both points of view (rather similar!) clash makes for a refreshing story.
Sadly, XY's Team Flare went back to a rather classical plot, leading to a very mild reception, but we all know how botched those games' story was.
Sun and Moon brought us Team Skull, and we're back into fresh territory. As said above, they're not really a threat, more like a bunch of people in need of companionship playing vandals. They're almost endearing, really. Then the revelation about Aether comes in and now there's a duality at hand.
In Sword and Shield, we have another bundle of bumbling nuisances with Team Yell. Are they interested in world domination? Nope. Do they ever get their hands on a legendary Pokémon? Absolutely not. What do they want? To worship their idol Marnie (as any person of culture does btw). Is Marnie their leader? No! What a ridiculous notion! They don't even have a figurehead (Piers is the closest to that, and even he has a very loose control on them). In the end they're just vocal supporters, which fits nicely in a region where Pokémon is a sport played in a stadium.

So, yeah, props to GF to expand from the traditional villain plot. Nothing wrong with that, but eight generations of Team Rocket + reskins would have felt real stale.

 

[Gokuzbu]

Say what you want about them but Aqua and Magma didn't want to rule the world either

 

[mertyville]

Not much of a fan of Ruby and Sapphire, but I can't deny I enjoyed discovering the Regis by unlocking their secrets. Without online resources, I am certain they are the hardest Pokemon to find and it feels very rewarding.
Tho when I played Emerald, it was a pain to unlock Regice because I wasn't certain how I should run through the chamber.

 

[TMan87]

Say what you want about them but Aqua and Magma didn't want to rule the world either

Sure, but they did want to use their legendary of choice to remodel the world the way they saw fit. It's the same kind of plot.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Which type is widely considered to be the weakest type? Which type is so often associated with pathetic Pokemon that aren't expected to be used past the early game?

Grass?

 

[Ironmage]

Grass?

To be honest, my first pick would probably be Normal. You have one or two early normal-types that just exist to look like an animal to ease newbies into a fantasy world, and by midgame it's likely to only see use as an HM slave. Good Normals are either carried by another type or rare/out of the way (arguably pretty similar to good Bugs), and sometimes their usefulness doesn't even apply to how ingame battles usually go (e.g. Chansey). Bug at least has some SE matchups.

But I could totally see Grass as being overwritten ingame once solid water and electric-types show up.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

To be honest, my first pick would probably be Normal.

Normal got a lot of pretty nice mons tho, even though some may not have the stats to keep up with the creep nowadays.

For example Tauros, Zangoose, Bouffalant, Miltank, Kangaskhan... You can build a pretty nice monotype Normal team, even without the dual-typed ones.
Edit: RIP Return tho...

 

[mertyville]

I love me some Pokken Tournament. I finished the Iron League recently and had lots of fun.
It was what I hoped back in the days when Pokemon first came out to happen. A real fighting game to play the anime. Obviously there is no way we could get such a large roster of 151 Pokemon and have a balanced fighting game, but I was a child that didn't know better.

But I can't complain about the roster. It's pretty good minus the lack of Rock Types.

Tho I wish the characters you are fighting have more battle dialogs and not only before you beat them. I want to hear characters spout something if I lose or beat them to make me more motivated.
You are really playing the game just to use the Pokemon. And such a wasted opportunity that you can't even battle your coach who is always besides you and talks about her 'amazing' Weavile.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I love me some Pokken Tournament. I finished the Iron League recently and had lots of fun.
It was what I hoped back in the days when Pokemon first came out to happen. A real fighting game to play the anime. Obviously there is no way we could get such a large roster of 151 Pokemon and have a balanced fighting game, but I was a child that didn't know better.

But I can't complain about the roster. It's pretty good minus the lack of Rock Types.

Tho I wish the characters you are fighting have more battle dialogs and not only before you beat them. I want to hear characters spout something if I lose or beat them to make me more motivated.
You are really playing the game just to use the Pokemon. And such a wasted opportunity that you can't even battle your coach who is always besides you and talks about her 'amazing' Weavile.

Pokken had no business having a Duel Phase that fun if you can barely get 2 combos before reverting to that trash Field Phase. Also, no Gallade. Just disappointing.

Props for making Pikachu a legit fun character tho. Mishimas are cool.

 

[mertyville]

Pokken had no business having a Duel Phase that fun if you can barely get 2 combos before reverting to that trash Field Phase. Also, no Gallade. Just disappointing.

Props for making Pikachu a legit fun character tho. Mishimas are cool.

I like field phase more because there is more freedom. I use Charizard and it's a pain to deal with all those shield breaking moves from Chandelure and Suicune. And Weavile is quite fast to for me to guard or attack the proper time, and restricting it to duel phase forces you to close combat.

 

[Ironmage]

I like field phase more because there is more freedom. I use Charizard and it's a pain to deal with all those shield breaking moves from Chandelure and Suicune. And Weavile is quite fast to for me to guard or attack the proper time, and restricting it to duel phase forces you to close combat.

I play Darkrai, and there's a part of me that hates how their duel phase goes down. I want to play with traps, and it pains me when removing the trap aspect to just slap the attacks in the middle of combos is considered a good thing. Field phase Darkrai doesn't need to sacrifice effectiveness for my playstyle.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Weavile is quite fast to for me to guard or attack the proper time, and restricting it to duel phase forces you to close combat.

I want to play with traps, and it pains me when removing the trap aspect to just slap the attacks in the middle of combos is considered a good thing.

Y'all know that 2D fighting games also have defensive and ranged characters, right?

But yeah, I see where you're coming from. I just think the field phase is really shallow and not very well implemented. The duel phase is fine for what it is, but if it was the sole focus of the gameplay, it'd be much more fleshed out.

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

One thing I like in the Pokémon games is to just simply train Pokémon. Seeing my own Pokémon grow, evolve and develop through actual training against other Pokémon (both wild and owned by other trainers) is something I usually find fun, at least as long as there are great training spots in the games. This is one big reason as for why I’m so fond of Gen 5 & 6, they have training spots that range between great and epic. I think that if the actual training and level grinding in an RPG is enjoyable, then that’s a part of the recipe for a successful game.

I like how Pokémon often have Abilities that make sense for them thematically. I guess this is partly one of the points of Abilities, but the more I thought of it, the more it makes sense. At first, I thought it was mostly a thing regarding Hidden Abilities, but then I relalized that it makes sense for a lot of regular abilities too. Not every single one of them, but probably a vast majority at least.

Next, something I thought about after reading some discussions on this subject in various other threads a while ago. Gen 4 often gets credit for introducing the Physical/Special split, which it deserves since I think that was a really beneficial thing for the series. However, another thing Gen 4 did which it doesn’t get enough credit for is that it allowed every type to finally have a good offensive move, for both Physical and Special. Several new moves got introduced and their distribution was mostly good as well. And if it wasn’t good in D/P, Platinum and future games generally improved upon it. No longer did we have to see those situations that existed in the previous generations, where some Pokémon did not have a STAB that matched their highest attacking stat, or sometimes just a very weak STAB move at best. Or even worse, some Pokémon didn’t even have a STAB move at all! But starting with Gen 4, most Pokémon now have a good STAB move for their highest attacking stat instead of bad attacks or nothing, and no longer are any Pokémon forced to rely on Hidden Power (rest in pain, never come back) just for STAB like some were in Gen 2/3. So that is something I really like. Gen 4 revolutionized the movepools of several Pokémon which Gen 5-8 later built upon even further, and I like that a lot.

I also want to give some praise to another individual Pokémon/line.

Zorua and Zoroark, the trickster foxes. Despite being the first Gen 5 Pokémon revealed and getting some heavy marketing early on in the generation, I feel that they never got the appreciation they deserve. I think they are both really cool. I am a huge fan of foxes, but the Vulpix line never really caught my heart. Fortunately, I really like the Zorua line and the other new fox Pokémon from Gen 5 and on. Design-wise, I think Zorua and Zoroark are awesome. In terms of battle performance, Zoroark is a quite fast and decently strong attacker. It has fairly good Speed, high Sp.att but still decently high Attack to the point that it can go Physical or Mixed if it wants to. But where these foxes really shine are their Ability, Illusion. Despite knowing about it, this tends to fool me a lot, even in more recent times. Here are some examples of where it has fooled me, both in the long past and in more recent times:
- I remember one time when B/W were new and I was battling in the Subway, having just started at the normal lines in order to grind up BP for Power Items. I was using some legendaries I had transferred from Gen 4 since I had nothing else I could use that felt good enough in Gen 5 at that point. One battle went something like this: I was up against a Tranquill. My Azelf used Psychic. No effect, what the heck? The opposing Tranquill used Foul Play, super effective, Azelf fainted. What is going on? Out with Mesprit. Thunderbolt, not super effective? The opposing Zorua's Illusion was off! The opposing Zorua fainted. That was one of the first but definitely not the last times I got fooled by Illusion in the Subway.
- There are also more situations from last year when I returned to the Subway again. One of them was like this: in one battle, I met an opposing Honchkrow which used Counter. I thought it was weird since I was looking up the opposing sets as I was battling, and the Honchkrow on Serebii’s list (which I was using at that point) didn’t have Counter on its moveset. I checked the list on Smogon just in case Serebii had a mistake, but according to that list, none of the Honchkrow in the Subway knows Counter! In fact, Honchkrow doesn’t even learn Counter at all. This made me wonder what was going on. I thought about it for a bit, looked at the other Pokémon that the trainer I was up against could have… and saw Zoroark! I saw Counter in its moveset and realized that I was up against a Zoroark, everything made sense.
- Lastly, there was another time in the Super Multi line. One of my opponents was leading with a Tyranitar… but Sand Stream didn’t activate. Did that mean it had Unnerve instead? No, because that would also have given out a message, and opponents in the Subway doesn’t have Hidden Abilities, so it couldn’t be that way. What did this mean? That it was a Zoroark, of course. That trainer then had a Tyranitar as their second Pokémon. While this situation didn't really fool me, it still forced me to think twice about what I was up against.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

However, another thing Gen 4 did which it doesn’t get enough credit for is that it allowed every type to finally have a good offensive move, for both Physical and Special. Several new moves got introduced and their distribution was mostly good as well. And if it wasn’t good in D/P, Platinum and future games generally improved upon it. No longer did we have to see those situations that existed in the previous generations, where some Pokémon did not have a STAB that matched their highest attacking stat, or sometimes just a very weak STAB move at best. Or even worse, some Pokémon didn’t even have a STAB move at all! But starting with Gen 4, most Pokémon now have a good STAB move for their highest attacking stat instead of bad attacks or nothing, and no longer are any Pokémon forced to rely on Hidden Power (rest in pain, never come back) just for STAB like some were in Gen 2/3. So that is something I really like. Gen 4 revolutionized the movepools of several Pokémon which Gen 5-8 later built upon even further, and I like that a lot.

Nothing but facts!!!

Flying, Bug, Steel, and Grass types usually had to rely on Hidden Power for STAB before Gen 4.

 

[Nokocchi]

One thing I appreciated about the Gen I to Gen II connectivity is that is was a two-way trade instead of a one-way transfer like Gen IV onwards.

It allowed some interesting things to happen, like the Shiny Ditto glitch so you could easily get a shiny of any breedable Pokemon. But one thing I think is heavily underappreciated is tradeback moves in Gen I. They gave some nice options for Gen I multiplayer, or more commonly, Pokemon Stadium runs.

Such examples include the following:

TMs and Move Tutors of Gen I moves that were not TMs in Gen I: Headbutt, Roar, Ice Punch, Defense Curl, Thunderpunch, Fire Punch, Waterfall, and Flamethrower. Granted, only the punches and Flamethrower were any good, but it was something.

Also, some Egg moves made things more interesting when combined with Gen I Mechanics: Razor Leaf Oddish, Fire Spin Growlithe, Psychic Golduck, and Amnesia Nidoran Male/Clefairy/Meowth/Krabby/Tangela.

 

[Deleted User 465389]

How recent gx/v’s feature underlooked pokemon
lost thunder had shuckle gx, unbroken bonds had dedenne, aannnddd...

this is what battle style’s have

delelele whoooop

 

[ZB7]

Something I’ve come to appreciate about Alola is the ride pager. I, like many am not particularly fond of HMs and I’m glad they’re gone but at the same time I’m kind of upset they got rid of the concept nearly in its entirety. Only surf and fly in their essence remain but that’s because they’re the bare essentials, as in the water mode Rotom Bike and the Taxi Corviknight, as one allows for exploration and the other is for skip travel. Getting rid of the different HMs and concepts alike (Ride pager) limits exploration and areas you can revisit by quite a bit. I’m replaying both Platinum and White 2 right now and while the moveslots are annoying, I’m grateful they’re there, because it means I don’t always have to be moving forward.

To get to the point, I really like the ride pager. It allows you to get the same exploration from HMs while being able to freely make your party as competent as possible. My only complaint is how similar some of the modes are. For example, Tauros, Stoutland and Mudsdale definitely could’ve been combined, same with Lapras and Sharpedo, though I can see why having them available separately allows for more things to open up at different times, it’d be boring to do it in one fell swoop.
I’ve not fully completed my UM copy just yet, so when I do, I’ll probably edit or write a post about my whole thoughts on it, and I’ll see if my feelings have changed.

TL;DR: Ride Pager could use some optimization, but it’s far better than HMs and just surf and fly.

 

[Pikachu315111]

To get to the point, I really like the ride pager. It allows you to get the same exploration from HMs while being able to freely make your party as competent as possible. My only complaint is how similar some of the modes are. For example, Tauros, Stoutland and Mudsdale definitely could’ve been combined, same with Lapras and Sharpedo, though I can see why having them available separately allows for more things to open up at different times, it’d be boring to do it in one fell swoop.

Agree though I do miss the feeling its by your own hands (or rather the Pokemon you own) that you are conquering the land with the skills you learn. PokeRides is a neat concept and makes sense as of course you'd need a Pokemon service for the normal people who aren't trainers to travel around. But if you are a trainer like you are in the games, and especially if you have the Pokemon which the PokeRides are, the question of why aren't you using your Pokemon does linger in the back of your mind. HMs obviously has their problem and my idea to fix it would be:

1. Letting your Pokemon use HMs even if they don't know them. Like if you have the HM and a Pokemon that can use it, I say it wouldn't be a stretch that you could temporarily have the Pokemon use the HM without it fully learning the move. It's just cutting a tree, moving a boulder, breaking a rock, flying you around, having you ride on its back while surfing, etc.. It needs the HM to understand what to do, but Pokemon learn and forget moves all the time so they could have made field use of HMs an instance of semi-learning.
   "But you'd still need a Pokemon that knows the HM". That would still be a problem, but you know what, maybe that's where they could bring back the Poke Pager. But instead of it being someone else's Pokemon you summon, you set it so it's one of your own Pokemon that comes in to help you (though not to force anyone to capture a Pokemon they don't want, maybe do have a "default" Pokemon you can borrow).
   
   
2. Instead of making your Pokemon the tool, why not just get tools yourself to get around? Have it be something where the trainer expands on their skills via acquiring "HM/field items", you're Pokemon already does so much battling alone maybe it should be up to the trainer to be the one who gets around. I could post down a few item ideas though the ones I came up with are kind of out there in need of explaining away "safety concerns" such items would bring up, but I feel just this brief explanation is enough to get what I'm talking about.

And I also agree that some of the Poke Rides felt kind of redundant because they feel like they were added in overcome an obstacle that could have just not been there. Tauros Charge makes sense enough, but did we really need a Stoutland Ride to smell out things or a Mudsdale Ride where it's only purpose was to get over a slightly rougher terrain? I'd have no problem with both Lapras and Sharpedo being surf if they had given Larpas an additional function which Sharpedo couldn't do, like maybe have a few waterfalls scattered around Alola and the only way to enter them is if Lapras freezes the top of the them or there are rapids/whirlpools which Lapras can more gently swim through/form an ice bridge over that it slides across on. But once you get Sharpedo then Lapras becomes much less used (unless you want to fish in the few locations in the water you can, I think you do need to do that to at least get one or two Pokemon).

 

[Ironmage]

Instead of making your Pokemon the tool, why not just get tools yourself to get around? Have it be something where the trainer expands on their skills via acquiring "HM/field items", you're Pokemon already does so much battling alone maybe it should be up to the trainer to be the one who gets around. I could post down a few item ideas though the ones I came up with are kind of out there in need of explaining away "safety concerns" such items would bring up, but I feel just this brief explanation is enough to get what I'm talking about.

Cut would be really easy, since the Cuttable trees of previous games are within the capabilities of a good pair of clippers.

 

[Codraroll]

I think the ice type is the only one in-universe to have a type specialist (Wulfric, iirc) go "yeah we have like a million weaknesses but!"

"... but! to make absolutely certain you beat me anyway, I'm making my team absolutely pathetic just in case. Let's lead with a mixed Abomasnow to validate your gut-instinct idea of bringing a Fire-type to this fight, put defensive moves on my Cryogonal (base Defense: 30), and finish the show with Avalugg, a 'mon with base 28 Speed and 46 Sp. Def."

I really wonder if anybody ever lost to Wulfric. If you've made it that far through the game you shouldn't have this be the roadblock that stops you.

 

[Ironmage]

"... but! to make absolutely certain you beat me anyway, I'm making my team absolutely pathetic just in case. Let's lead with a mixed Abomasnow to validate your gut-instinct idea of bringing a Fire-type to this fight, put defensive moves on my Cryogonal (base Defense: 30), and finish the show with Avalugg, a 'mon with base 28 Speed and 46 Sp. Def."

I really wonder if anybody ever lost to Wulfric. If you've made it that far through the game you shouldn't have this be the roadblock that stops you.

I remember being genuinely impressed by Wulfric's avalugg. Following the utter disaster that was my experience with the Fairy gym, Doublade finally learned Iron Head and nothing was standing in its way anymore. Except for, apparently, this one behemoth of an Ice-type that isn't even 2HKO'd by my ace's SE STAB.

It didn't stand a chance against Delphox once I switched to him, but such is life.

 

[Deleted User 465389]

I generally don’t like morpeko, but I found something interesting about it this time!

it’s the gen 8 pikaclone
it has a outline of pikachu’s tail on its back
Granted I still don’t like it, but it actually has something interesting about it!

 

[Pikachu315111]

So, this is a thing:

(FUN FACT: The builders of this Rube Goldberg machine are Youtubers DoodleChaos and Sprice Machines)

BTW, made a thread for the 25th Anniversary Celebration.

 

[ZB7]

3 Things I like, long post though:

1: Something I quite literally only found out I really like about a few minutes before making this post is that I find pokemon lore to be very good and fun to find in the actual games, especially in Platinum where finding out how the Lake Trio and Creation Trio came to be is very cool. Another region where I find the lore to be alluring is surprisingly, Galar, or more specifically, the Crown Tundra. I was reading up on it and well, to be honest, it definitely could be expanded upon. But one line regarding the tundra’s past and how Calyrex went from powerful to weak really grabs my attention:

“It shrank back in fear if approached with open palms, so all kept their hands closed in its presence.”

This is so interesting because of Eternatus, whose other form is an open palm, which would suggest that Calyrex had an encounter with Eternatus in its eternamax form. I really wish it was expanded upon, because it could finally given the story around the legends of Galar some actual footing, and the history of Eternatus because it is the most interesting Galar legendary imo.



2: This bunny, alongside the other Galar starters, is a sort of controversial topic, on how pokemon starter designs are getting too specialized, and more importantly, human. I do think they should give this type of design a rest, but the bunny stuck out to me. This pokemon, despite not really looking all that much like a pokemon, is one of the most expressive pokemon imo. When the IoA came around, running around with it was super fun, as it’s really fast, and it made me look into its expressiveness further, like how if you whistle while it follows you, it does a sort of “GOOOOOAL” mannerism (it also does it after it evolves into Cinderace). I can see how this can be jarring, as an animal that isn’t human shouldn’t really have human mannerisms but for me it’s just really cute, especially as a British person (though ironically I don’t like football much) and I find it’s cry to also pair really well with this. Other small things I find really cool about it is that during battle, like some pokemon, it has a small thing it does to break its idle stance, what it does is kick a pyro ball for a while. In camp it tries to kick pokemon it starts having disagreements with, and it also does a little stand up on its heels when something makes it happy. I can see why people dislike Cinderace, and this specific set of starters, as it highlights a problem with some pokemon designs these days and it’s a “furry” mon, as in people dislike specifically because some furries like it, because it’s, well furry. But it’s just one of my favourites and tied with Empoleon as my favourite starter because of what I’ve highlighted.

3: Last thing, is the character design of Hilbert and Hilda, the BW1 protagonists. These two are my absolute favourite character designs in pokemon. They completely reflect the fact that they are slightly older trainers than were used to, and it’s one of the few times where I can can say that I fully prefer the male design of the protagonist over the female design, the others being Ethan, Lucas, and Brendan. They’re just GOATED designs, what more can I say.

If you read through it all, thank you. Criticize these opinions if you want :D

 

[Siggu]

“It shrank back in fear if approached with open palms, so all kept their hands closed in its presence.”

This is so interesting because of Eternatus, whose other form is an open palm, which would suggest that Calyrex had an encounter with Eternatus in its eternamax form. I really wish it was expanded upon, because it could finally given the story around the legends of Galar some actual footing, and the history of Eternatus because it is the most interesting Galar legendary imo.

Considering Calyrex has a completely unique Dynamax hue, there must be something that connects the two.