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Was catching up on my Journeys watch and this episode had a pretty cool evolution animation for a Larvesta: it doesn't just energy transform into a Volcarona, there's an extended part of the sequence where it first transforms into a cocoon that catches on fire before emerging as a Volcarona proper.
That's a fun, flavorful transition phase to throw in there.
Was catching up on my Journeys watch and this episode had a pretty cool evolution animation for a Larvesta: it doesn't just energy transform into a Volcarona, there's an extended part of the sequence where it first transforms into a cocoon that catches on fire before emerging as a Volcarona proper.
That's a fun, flavorful transition phase to throw in there.
It's a shout-out to the games' Pokedex entries where Larvesta's evolution into Volcarona, while technically direct, is in-universe a rapid transition with the metamorphosis process where it, as the larva, basically engulfs itself into a cocoon of fire as a rapid and quick pupa stage before becoming the imago Volcarona.
Its Pokedex entries in Gen 5 allude to this:
Black: "This Pokémon was believed to have been born from the sun. When it evolves, its entire body is engulfed in flames."
BW2: "Said to have been born from the sun, it spews fire from its horns and encases itself in a cocoon of fire when it evolves."
But yeah, it's a pretty neat transition phase and it's also a neat shout-out to its in-game Pokedex lore, seeing it actually in action in the anime.
Assuming this is an English-only pun, I'd assume Bale, those movies are incredibly popular. Personally, I'd pick Scientist Pat (Pattinson), both for recency but also because that means all 3 are considered the odder Batmans.
I liked Journeys getting a couple of those in, another favorite of mine being the first time we've seen evidence rather than rumor/hearsay about Banette being born from an abandoned doll.
Some BST related stuff - Slaking still being the strongest non Legendary - and just being a lazy ass.
Arceus still having the highest BST outside of Megas/Primals and crazy one time bosses (Necrozma already fused and overloaded with light, Eternatus absorbed all energy in Galar). Hey also is that the first time an ingame charactee is specifically mentioned (Rose) in a dex entry?
Legends with BST’s not divisible by 10. Zygarde 10% (486), Zygarde Complete (708), Type:Null (534), Ultra Necrozma (754).
Iron Jugulis and Iron Thorns being lower than Hydreigon and Tyranitar. Feels like kind of a we tried and failed to replicate the power of these Pokemon situation (like the opposite of Mewtwo?).
Some BST related stuff - Slaking still being the strongest non Legendary - and just being a lazy ass.
Arceus still having the highest BST outside of Megas/Primals and crazy one time bosses (Necrozma already fused and overloaded with light, Eternatus absorbed all energy in Galar). Hey also is that the first time an ingame charactee is specifically mentioned (Rose) in a dex entry?
Legends with BST’s not divisible by 10. Zygarde 10% (486), Zygarde Complete (708), Type:Null (534), Ultra Necrozma (754).
Iron Jugulis and Iron Thorns being lower than Hydreigon and Tyranitar. Feels like kind of a we tried and failed to replicate the power of these Pokemon situation (like the opposite of Mewtwo?).
In the internal data of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, Shiinotic is defined as a Mythical Pokémon instead of Marshadow. This is likely due to a typo between their internal names, with 「マシェード」 Mashēdo (Shiinotic) being mistaken for 「マーシャドー」 Māshadō (Marshadow).
The fact that the protagonists are named Victor and Gloria in a game all about Gym matches being sports events, with their fair share of fame and sponsors, and beating the undefeated champion
Victor and Gloria are Latin-inspired names, and the starting town of Postwick is situated in southern Galar, which is famously the only part of England the Romans ever held for long (and then built a wall to tell the locals to stop trying to invade. And then they built another just south of Scotland but that one apparently lasted for only 18 years before the locals invaded anyway)
I still hate how the games treat regional variants in terms of breeding
but the flipside is it meant I didn't have to hunt for, or grind for Ability Patches to change, Galvanize Geodude, Steely Spirit Perrserker and Perish Body Cursola because I can just take the hidden ability standard Geodude, Meowth & Corsola and breed for it that way.
I still hate how the games treat regional variants in terms of breeding
but the flipside is it meant I didn't have to hunt for, or grind for Ability Patches to change, Galvanize Geodude, Steely Spirit Perrserker and Perish Body Cursola because I can just take the hidden ability standard Geodude, Meowth & Corsola and breed for it that way.
I'm quite sure he's referring to the whole fact that if you're not using Everstone on a pokemon with a regional variant, it'll always birth the regional variant no matter the parents
I'm quite sure he's referring to the whole fact that if you're not using Everstone on a pokemon with a regional variant, it'll always birth the regional variant no matter the parents
Worldie has it right
It's not a big deal (at least you can do it at all), but it's just annoying and doesn't feel intuitive at all. If anything it feels like it should be the opposite: default to your proper species, unless you're holding an item.
I don't often finish RPG's for whatever reason. But Pokemon is the exception, and I don't think it's me being a fan since Emerald doing the talking. Maybe it's because I grew up on linear games.
Onto the actual topic though. One thing I think even the old Pokemon games do pretty well is presenting of information, even if the Pokedex entries didn't tell you type on the screen right when you caught it until DPPT I believe? Could be wrong as I checked images online and that seemed to be the case.
I mean, yeah RBY didn't tell you what moves did on the summary screens and I don't think GSC did either, but blah blah early installment weirdness, franchise was still new and they smoothed that out by the GBA.
Like, even RPG's released in modern times like World of Final Fantasy Maxima (which I got because the older games' insistence on guide moments scared me away even if I sorta liked and finished VI - yeah Pokemon has guide moments too but in the old days it'd be where that stuff was justified like with a psuedo legend Bagon or completely worthless like Chimecho and co, Feebas being the only exception off the top of my head as Milotic is good) that are also explicitly aimed at younger audiences can have really unintuitive design.
Seriously, WOFF Maxima insists on hiding info from the player or making it temporary to see in battle you have to waste a turn for. Oh, I scanned something via Libra, it'd be great if I could see that weakness info in future battles, but no. What if you forget a weakness of something? You have to Libra / Scan them again, which takes up a jewel slot. One great feature Gen 7 and on had was telling you type matchups of enemies you faced before, which was released around the same time. Sure, the old Pokemon games never told you what mon was what type, but you at least had Gym Guides to give you hints, and Maxima does that with saying things like "bring fire monsters to ice area" too, but that's like one minor positive in a sea of needlessly complicated design. If this RPG is for beginners, why do so many monsters only do 1-2 things? So you can encourage constant refrigerator shuffling to hit weaknesses in new areas along with the insane amount of menu time spent in finding weaknesses and upgrading skills for like 150 Mirages / monsters? Yeah the Pokemon parallels are not subtle at all folks. In Pokemon, making a balanced team of types works but in Maxima it's like dig into 50 menus to find out what can do what.
Look at the Normal type as a parallel. One weakness, one immunity, neutral damage everywhere. Now that's a good beginner tutorial - Normals learn lots of moves too encouraging experimentation. The Work Up TM in the Unova games cements this, it tells you about buffing while being pretty commonplace on a variety of Pokemon.
Back to Maxima, wanna check this monster's flavor text via the Mirage Manual? Go to this specific location. How about the level of the enemies in the area? Nope, that's hidden from you. People love to rag on Gen 1 and yeah that game is dated to an extent but it at least let you see levels and have the Pokedex with you wherever you went, but in Maxima released in 2018 you're telling me I have to go to some dumb house????
The point I'm framing is that the old games tell you more than what people gave them credit for to an extent (context in the Maxima rant above but didn't wanna bloat the post visually), particularly from Gen 3 onwards (the only real major gameplay snag I think it might trip up on is which types are physical or special, but that's pretty much it and DPPT fixed that too). Gen 1 and 2 told you levels, by the time BW2 came around we had Juniper hinting or telling you evolution methods, that's great to reduce guide time! Sure, Pokemon hasn't massively overhauled the battle system yet, but it also doesn't really need to! It is good the main stories are relatively easy! It is good that the design is streamlined! Sure, it might be easy for veteran players but developers have to design for the first time player in mind, which Pokemon is pretty stellar at imo, that's why all the signposting of what Pokemon you need before every major boss is so great!
Sorry if this post was scattered, I didn't want to make it super long either, but yeah, Pokemon is relatively simple, but it works, and that's what I like about it.
I love how the anime made the soon-to-be-Roy's Fuecoco actually have an affinity for singing, even if it's a bit shy about it, and how this Fuecoco regularly sings when it's alone.
It's a wonderful shout-out to the fact that its final form, Skeledirge, is a singer who sings wonderful and pleasant melodies with its voice. This Fuecoco is already establishing it from the get go by being a singer in its lone time.
Often, when the same location appears in multiple games it gets redesigned (Granite Cave from RSE to ORAS, Seafoam Islands from RBY/FRLG to HGSS, and of course Cerulean Cave looks completely different in every game) but I've only just noticed how closely GSC hews to the original RBY designs for a lot of Kanto locations.
Like Victory Road:
Apart from the exit being moved from 3F to 2F, it's very similar, just a bit cut at the corners.
Rock Tunnel:
Same basic layout on both floors, just drastically shrunk down like most of GSC Kanto is.
Even the facsimile of Viridian Forest on Route 2 has a very similar shape to the path through the forest proper:
But honestly though, this game has more than enough caves so I'm liking that this one is basically just one easily-traversible small room. And Mt Moon Square is a really cute area so I much prefer having that.
It was commonly-accepted fanon for some time that the reduced size in Mt Moon specifically was a result of cave-ins or rockslides (Bulbapedia even had this in their article about Mt Moon at one point) even though NOTHING in the games even hints at this as far as I'm aware. Though, given the slew of natural disasters elsewhere in Kanto, it's a fair assumption. It's interesting though when you look at Victory Road's new exit, because it literally does look like it was punched through the back wall to make a new exit after the old exit got cut off. Given the huge amount of individual rock tiles scattered so unevenly around the cave it really does look like Victory Road suffered from rockfalls at some point. Curious.
That said, I really like what HGSS did with Diglett's Cave. It's a phenomenally dull location in all of the older games; even GSC drastically shortening it doesn't make it any more interesting:
...but HGSS unexpectedly livens it up by adding in a bunch of Rock Climb areas and some bridges, which gives it a lot more visual appeal and a reason to revisit the location! Never expected to ever say anything in praise of Diglett's Cave but yeah, I really like how it turned out in Gen IV.
HGSS makes a respectable attempt to do the same thing with Rock Tunnel, but the fact that you never need to actually enter the place at all kind of kills the impetus to go in. It's such a pointless location in those games.
There aren't even any exclusive Pokemon in the place in Gen IV to compel you; Kangaskhan is a Pokewalker species now, Cubone and Marowak can be found much earlier in the Safari Zone, and all the Hoenn and Sinnoh Sound Pokemon can be found in a variety of other places. There aren't even any trainers like there are in Viridian Forest or Seafoam Islands. Sure if you really want the TM for Fling, I guess? Still, it's at least a lot more visually interesting than it is in any of the previous games, so that's a small plus.
There aren't even any exclusive Pokemon in the place in Gen IV to compel you; Kangaskhan was removed (presumably because it's on the Pokewalker now), Cubone can be found much earlier in the Safari Zone, and all the Hoenn and Sinnoh Sound Pokemon can be found in a variety of other places. There aren't even any trainers like there are in Viridian Forest or Seafoam Islands. Sure if you really want the TM for Fling, I guess? Still, it's at least a lot more visually interesting than it is in any of the previous games, so that's a small plus.
