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Little things you like about Pokémon

Yeah each game has its own distinct style for most of the tracks, the hardest to differentiate are probably the ones that had very similar sound fonts (Gen 1/2, and DPPT vs HGSS)

Pokemon Heardle was a fun thing I used to do, you could narrow it down pretty quick if you could pick up the instrumentation and at that point it's just trying to divvy out if its "in" the style or one of the purposely "out" of style tracks.
And then wasting all your attempts because you know what it is, know where it plays but it has an unintuitive name so you have to try everything.
 
R_N said:
Yeah each game has its own distinct style for most of the tracks, the hardest to differentiate are probably the ones that had very similar sound fonts (Gen 1/2, and DPPT vs HGSS)

Pokemon Heardle was a fun thing I used to do, you could narrow it down pretty quick if you could pick up the instrumentation and at that point it's just trying to divvy out if its "in" the style or one of the purposely "out" of style tracks.
And then wasting all your attempts because you know what it is, know where it plays but it has an unintuitive name so you have to try everything.
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Ah, the constant struggle of video game music. Guessing if you have the "Boss Theme 2" categorization, the "Vagrant Counting Song of Introspection" categorization, or the "There's a Bone in my Spaghetti" categorization.
 
I was once again reminded of how delightfully absurd the food mechanics in Pokemon are. Starting back in Gen 3, where each berry was given flavor text describing its size and texture and culinary uses and whatnot, all the way to Gen 9, where there's an entire physics engine dedicated to stacking sandwiches and a plethora of real-world ingredients each with their own flavor text describing in earnest how they taste. Someone at Game Freak must just really like food, because I cannot fathom another reason for why they would consistently put such granular and detailed effort into something that has absolutely nothing to do with the franchise's core conceit of catching and battling weird magic animals.

Like, they don't do this with any other items. It's just the foodstuffs.
 
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DrPumpkinz said:
I was once again reminded of how delightfully absurd the food mechanics in Pokemon are. Starting back in Gen 3, where each berry was given flavor text describing its size and texture and culinary uses and whatnot, all the way to Gen 9, where there's an entire physics engine dedicated to stacking sandwiches and a plethora of real-world ingredients each with their own flavor text describing in earnest how they taste. Someone at Game Freak must just really like food, because I cannot fathom another reason for why they would consistently put such granular and detailed effort into something that has absolutely nothing to do with the franchise's core conceit of catching and battling weird magic animals.

Like, they don't do this with any other items. It's just the foodstuffs.
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Maybe it's a JRPG thing because I notice cooking is something that pops up quite a lot with things like Paper Mario's "crafting/alchemy" system being 100+ recipes or FF 15's famous cooking mechanic for buffs on in-game days.
 
After years of guides assuring me that "the GameCube titles raise the catch rates of Shadow Pokemon to make them easier to catch!" I'd assumed that the catch rates of all the legendaries in Colosseum/XD were... actually significantly higher than they typically are in the main series. Never actually had cause to look it up but, while looking up the catch rate of something else on Bulbapedia's big list, my eye was caught by the little asterisk next to a couple of Pokemon indicating that an exception was made at some point and so it turns out that Suicune, Entei, and Raikou's shared catch rate of 3 was indeed raised in Colosseum... to 15.

Not 45 or 60 or even 75 or something a bit more generous like you'd expect. 15.

Meanwhile the sequel was a bit more forgiving with Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres - they got their catch rate of 3 raised to 25 instead. Lugia's rate is unchanged, which I suppose is because you're expected to just use the Master Ball on it (and honestly why wouldn't you)

In fact, the idea that most Pokemon in those games got a catch rate increase is largely only true in XD, which makes a lot of its lategame Pokemon easier to catch - Snorlax and Chansey went from 25 and 30 respectively to 70; a bunch of base-45s like Kangaskhan, Tangela, Swellow, Manectric, and Altaria got generously boosted to 80 or 90; it pushes some species like Starmie, Magcargo, and Marowak from 60/70 to over 100; and even a couple of species like Primeape and Hypno get extremely small boosts you'd hardly notice too because hey why not. It also brings Houndour up to the same general catch rate as the other Pokemon it's caught alongside (Spheal, Seedot, Hoothoot, Gulpin, and Mareep).

Turns out, minor increases for legendaries aside, Colosseum actually makes several of its species harder to catch! Metagross gets the same increase as the beast trio - 3 to 15 - and most evolved/late-game species like Hitmontop, Mantine, Heracross, Ursaring, Houndoom, and Forretress were left unchanged, but it tweaks the rates of several other Pokemon, including Skarmory (which goes from 25 to 15), Togetic (75 to 45), and the unexpected big winner/loser* Tropius (200 to 45 - by far the biggest change). While Tyranitar, which had an initial catch rate of 45, gets reduced to just 10. The Pokemon significantly improved are the Johto starter trio, who all get their rates raised from 45 to a rather generous 180.

God, they really wanted to make Colosseum as hard as they possibly could, didn't they? I kind of dig it and I'm finding it really funny I've played that game several times always thinking the catch rates for all the Shadow Pokemon were uniformly better than the main series. except I quite often used the Master Ball glitch and so, even more amusingly, all the lowered catch rates were never an issue, oh well never mind hard luck Genius Sonority you tried your best






*depending on your outlook
 
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Yung Dramps said:
Ok full disclosure I get why someone wouldn't like the Cyberlord OG dragon design but for me it falls under the category of design where It's Just So Fucking Raw that I don't care. 8 year old boy me would never get over it and that's all that matters. See also: Dark Enerjak, 5th Form Cooler, General Grievous
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Ceruledge is, at least from my point of view, the one official Pokemon design that qualifies as Dark Enerjak Cool. You just can't beat that glorious dark blue and deep purple color scheme, nor that seamless balance of sleekness and durability. This is a design so good that it took Armarouge, who would've been the fan-favorite in any other duo, and relegated it to being the relatively ignored younger brother. It essentially obsoletes Gallade, my former favorite Pokemon.

https://tenor.com/view/captain-pika...thio-pokemon-amethio-gif-10297572907380031080

Give this dude to Flying Bark Productions or Studio Trigger or whatever. Put him in a Mystery Dungeon game. The sheer levels of KINO will be off the charts. Shadow the Hedgehog's long-standing position as every 10 year old's default "literally me" videogame guy will be put into serious question.
 
A recent addition to legends arceus and scarlet/violet I like a lot is the ability to change Pokemon movesets freely. This has made experimenting with different moves and planning against boss fight a lot easier to do, which makes the teambuilding aspect of the games much more fun. It also made me want to use the single use tms more, since using them felt more like unlocking the move rather than something I had to commit to.

Another similar change I have grown to appreciate is being able to freely swap out party members. It was very nice to have for my violet playthrough where I swapped out pokemon very often, and frequently made specific teams for each boss fight. Although I can also see why someone could dislike the change since it makes the games easier.

I do wish though that this flexibility could also be given to abilities, rather than needing to use an ability capsule or patch every time you wanted to switch abilities.
 
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I don't even believe it makes the game that much easier, given that the freshly swapped in member might be underlevelled. If you powerlevel them, they might then be lacking in EVs compared to other team members.
It still is an opportunity cost, but it does offer much freedom of experimentation, which I do agree is very nice.
 
I know that GF would never do something like that, but talking with a friend about Alola forms I realized how interesting a Kanto game with them being in place of their OG versions would be. The least represented types in the original 151 like Ghost, Dragon, Steel and specially Dark have Alolan forms. It's neat they recontextualized old mons that way, even if it clearly was not their intended purpouse. It's not really something that you can apply to later regional forms (trough I'm glad they moved on from being Kanto only).
 
DrrT said:
I know that GF would never do something like that, but talking with a friend about Alola forms I realized how interesting a Kanto game with them being in place of their OG versions would be. The least represented types in the original 151 like Ghost, Dragon, Steel and specially Dark have Alolan forms. It's neat they recontextualized old mons that way, even if it clearly was not their intended purpouse. It's not really something that you can apply to later regional forms (trough I'm glad they moved on from being Kanto only).
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I mean that's basically LGPE, it's just both instead of either-or. The way they were incorporated through trades made sense, wouldn't really have worked to have had them in the wild. It's cool that bosses adopt them into their teams though.
 
RB (and ONLY Red and Blue) has a sudden challenge in Mt Moon that I love. A grunt with a high leveled Raticate, high stats for that point of the game, and STAB Hyper Fang. The prev grunts lull you into a false sense of security and then comes this guy to hit you HARD. Probably the only moment in which the goons feel legit like a threat, it's like the traitor scene in TFA haha

https://twitter.com/x/status/1808181663773392989
 
DrrT said:
https://x.com/PLDHnet/status/1809676071702560868?t=Y5hOotw5b77i8M3z7sU2Ag&s=19

I'm not exactly Go's biggest fan even trough I play it at times, but this is admitedly pretty clever. (I don't know how to make the tweet show up in the post, sorry)
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sometimes trimming the url works, or switching to the twitter domain...
https://twitter.com/x/status/1809676071702560868

cant' tell if this worked int he preview window, though, so...

Pokémon GO's 8th year anniversary artwork teases the arrival of generation 8's signature battle mechanic using Pokémon #008. And here is that artwork, drawn by the game's character designer Yusuke Kozaki, at a nice, crisp high resolution.

GR1CHhSXcAAZ69_
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R_N said:
sometimes trimming the url works, or switching to the twitter domain...
https://twitter.com/x/status/1809676071702560868

cant' tell if this worked int he preview window, though, so...
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008 for Galar gimmick, clever /s

Though the fact that Wartortle was used to tease Dynamax for GO, and not Squirtle or Blastoise, is a rare moment where a middle stage starter not named Grovyle or Raboot get to shine.

The face to face clash between Annihilape and Gengar also feels so raw!
 
I think it's clever that Pokemon Horizons' third (and current) chapter is called "Terastal Debut", and the meaning of the title in context is that Liko, Roy, and Dot are making their "Terastal Debut"...learning how to use Terastal and properly entering the world as Trainers on their own two feet. In a sense, the world is a stage, and the three kids are making their big debut onto it as new and rising Trainers of their own.

And the OP song for the chapter is performed by a K-Pop girl group. Whether or not that was intentional, it's a neat nod to the idea, basically making an allusion to K-Pop groups and how they "debut" when they release their first album/single/MV and whatnot, but artists tend to spend years as trainees before they actually do so. Which was the case with the three kids, as they were under Friede and co's supervision up until the third chapter, now in this one they're properly "debuting" as Trainers of their own, shining in the spotlight themselves as true stars of the show.

In that regard the decision to have a K-Pop group sing the new OP song for that chapter was quite clever, in a way.
 
leafsaber47 said:
Blastoise's Hydro Pump has been animated correctly in Scarlet/Violet. A small reason why I like Scarlet/Violet more than Sword/Shield. Sure, Scarlet/Violet isn't as good as Gen 5 and 7 have been for me, but Game Freak's taking some steps in the right direction.
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I think the new models really help with that too. After being stuck from the same ones since XY, it's just refreshing to see better ones even if I'm not the biggest fan of the super detailed textures.
 
leafsaber47 said:
It's probably just the textures. Models don't feel all that different from the previous couple gens to me.
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Most aren't different -beyond the textures- but some did get some more overt changes. Charizard's got a different face shape, for example, I think Blastoise & Venusaur also got some tweaks to their overall stuff.

I think the big thing overall is just that Pokemon get to play with their other animations more. Usually it's just their 2-3 idle animations they cycle through periodically, but L:A & SV get to play more with stuff like "roaring" animations (I think a mix of animations they use in amie, certain attacks and occasionally their "battle intro" pose) and everyone on the overworld gets to use stuff typically reserved for Pokemonamie and its ilk. They also kept the same model for a number of Pokemon, but tweaked their base idle pose in battle; it's really obvious with the eeveelutions who now all crouch in a "ready" stance or the Typhlosions who now erupt their flames out once battle starts.
 
DrPumpkinz said:
I would love for Pokemon to produce a long animation that's just of some guy working a mundane office job at Silph Co. None of the dramatic stuff from Oleana's episode of Twilight Wings. It's literally just 15 minutes of Joe Mediocre filling out paperwork, answering calls from clients, and having small talk with coworkers in the break room. For example, there could be a short sequence where a disgruntled Pokemart representative calls to ask why the shipment of Pokeballs they were expecting hasn't arrived yet, and then Joe would transfer them to the shipping department. It would incredibly dull, but the juxtaposition of "zany world of Pokemon" with "9 to 5 job in a cubicle" would be hilarious, at least for me.

EDIT: It could also show Joe's commute, which could include a full two minute scene of Joe stuck in traffic because of some Pokemon-related event. A little bit of that scene would show us what's causing the hold up, and then the rest of those two minutes would be one continuous shot of Joe sitting in his car, occasionally driving forward a bit.
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The introduction of Larry into the Pokemon franchise means we're one step closer to seeing this become a reality.

Give us the feature-length animation of Larry working his office job, Game Freak.
 
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