Morpeko actually had some pretty decent runs, it just didn't last long. More so emolga and pachirisu tier. It's hard to compare them since I'm almost 99% sure mimikyu was designed to be extremely marketable under the guise of being an underdog
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Morpeko actually had some pretty decent runs, it just didn't last long. More so emolga and pachirisu tier. It's hard to compare them since I'm almost 99% sure mimikyu was designed to be extremely marketable under the guise of being an underdog
Togedemaru is my favorite pikaclone personally.
checked the dex in case togedemaru came after mimikyu and i could Well Actually you. turns out toge comes right before mimikyu in the dex, which i quite like. fun trivia i suppose
It's weird to me that they have artists draw PART of an evolutionary line. In early gens, sure, it was the wild west. But now? How are you going to have someone design Flittle and not Espathra? Designing a mon and keeping them similar to a different mon designed by someone else just seems like a lot of work and opportunity for error that having the whole line done by one person would avoid.
I can see the logic to it somewhat, they design it as this but later on decide they need a preevolution or evolution and the og designer can't handle it. Maybe they weren't free or had artist's block.
Or they just like the idea of multiple people on a single line just because it brings more variety to the line. They do like that "surprise" factor, for better or worse.
It's also possible there's just extra collaboration that doesn't get as to the forefront; we know already these go through several phases of people adjusting/finalizing designs after submission, but who is to say that whoever designed Espathra didn't have input on Flittle (or the reverse), you know? We know Xerneas & Yveltal in particular were Sugimori/Ohmura collaborations.
We so rarely get full idea of who designed what, and when we do it's usually just "i designed this "art posts rather than any deeper details.
azurill
While it's something you don't see discussed too often, I think it's safe to say that Dialga & Palkia didn't leave much of a mark relative to other paired mascot legendaries of their era. DP wasn't exactly a sterling first impression for the Sinnoh region in general, these two being no exception, and come Platinum they got sidelined at the climax by their brother Giratina. The end result is one of the dragons being most remembered for its usage in a spinoff game and the other being the subject of juvenile jokes about its head shape and not much else. It's a relief, then, that Legends Arceus swooped in and effectively gave them a much-needed overhaul.
Before we get into that, however, I think it's important to lay out why they might've felt a bit hollow in DPPt. If I had to point out one big thing I'd say it comes down to a pretty egregious gap between their stated power level and what they actually accomplish in-game. Sinnoh is notorious for skyrocketing the scope creep to levels only Alola's dimension-hopping antics have since matched: Forget ancient beasts that can manipulate weather, now we have divine entities controlling concepts like time, space and emotions. In the span of two games players went from fighting a yakuza splinter faction to a madman who wants to remake the entire universe in his twisted image. What does all this translate to in practical game design terms? Well, in DP, Cyrus summons the respective guy on the box, and the sky gets weird for one cutscene before Uxie, Azelf and Mesprit immediately put an end to things. You fight Cyrus, he ragequits, and then you go up against Palkia or Dialga only to find out it's the same old Wild Pokemon AI Ultra Ball lottery as always, because apparently the disciples of god have the same intellect as the Bidoof on Route 201. No unique boss mechanics to work around, not even any prolonged mark on the world to establish the stakes like the RSE drought/flood sequences, just a bland spray and pray. Like I said earlier, Giratina stole their thunder in Platinum, and while still saddled with the same systemic issue of a boring slog "battle" he at least got to flex his otherwordly power in a fun way via the Distortion World.
Turn the page over to Legends Arceus, and a very different picture presents itself. Long before you see them the game already passively builds the twin dragons up via the Diamond and Pearl Clans and the space-time distortions. Neither of these things are even directly their doing, but they set the tone of an unknown land governed by beings larger than life, its native people arguing over their true visage and meaning. The aforementioned rainbow-colored skybox interference is smartly used as a recurring aura within the distortions, a sort of visual leitmotif.
Of course, once you get to the climax, things really begin to kick into gear. And they do so not via anything really crazy or unprecedented but the opposite, beginning with a change that is deceptively simple: Switching the order of events.
By making the universal breakdown come before the pieces of the Red Chain are acquired, Legends Arceus forces the player to actually stew in the dread of what's happening. The village you've spent all game helping to build has cast you out, understandably driven to paranoia and terror by the corruption over Mt. Coronet. You have to seek out the Lake Guardians on the fly to try and stop the impending disaster. There's no time limit, and yet it feels like at any moment something terrible is going to happen. This sequence's effectiveness owes a huge debt to the above track: I could've made a whole post about it, not since Pyramid Head's theme have I heard a song that sounds so utterly devoid of hope and yet so strangely beautiful.
Speaking of music, one thing I forgot to mention earlier is the relative mediocrity of the original Dialga & Palkia battle theme. It's... fine. Mystical and catchy enough. It just feels a tad underwhelming, is all. Nowadays it just serves to underscore how profound of a transformation it received in Legends Arceus:
Phase 1 is heavy and oppressive to a T while also being permeated with heavenly chimes and slightly discordant piano. This is the theme of a situation gone FUBAR, a fight that should've never happened. What are you, mere mortal, against an immaculate lifeform that will still exist long after the Sun has expanded and swallowed up the Earth? Even in this introductory bout, the gloves feel like they've come off: Depending on your choice, Dialga or Palkia is the cap-off to a pretty beefy level spike, your strongest foe so far (a bar it failed to achieve in DP, Cyrus' Weavile outleveling it by one!) that will mow you down with extremely powerful moves if you can't whittle it down and catch it in time. Even the level-up movesets have been adjusted for better results!
And then you reach Phase 2 against the other brother.
While having an actual considered boss battle is of course a huge boost, so much of what I've described comes down to absolutely immense improvements in presentation. Dialga and Palkia FEEL so much more powerful than in DPPt - one highlight that always comes to my mind is their Origin form transformations decimating the Temple of Sinnoh in a golden explosion. After 16 years a combination of better hardware and great direction has finally made the pair into the titanic presences they were always meant to be.
In conclusion: I cannot wait to see what Legends Z-A does with these two
amazing
Dialga's Fight to the Finish
(this isn't all of them)
I made a similar playlist to this when I still used Soundcloud and decided to make a new version of the playlist in order to honor my tradition and honor my favorite song.
I just love it, nothing more to say. I am the #1 fan of this song and devoted to it.
(this isn't all of them)
I made a similar playlist to this when I still used Soundcloud and decided to make a new version of the playlist in order to honor my tradition and honor my favorite song.
I just love it, nothing more to say. I am the #1 fan of this song and devoted to it.
Honestly even with all that I'd still consider them overshadowed by Giratina. Volo's fight is just that impressive.
While it's something you don't see discussed too often, I think it's safe to say that Dialga & Palkia didn't leave much of a mark relative to other paired mascot legendaries of their era. DP wasn't exactly a sterling first impression for the Sinnoh region in general, these two being no exception, and come Platinum they got sidelined at the climax by their brother Giratina. The end result is one of the dragons being most remembered for its usage in a spinoff game and the other being the subject of juvenile jokes about its head shape and not much else. It's a relief, then, that Legends Arceus swooped in and effectively gave them a much-needed overhaul.
Before we get into that, however, I think it's important to lay out why they might've felt a bit hollow in DPPt. If I had to point out one big thing I'd say it comes down to a pretty egregious gap between their stated power level and what they actually accomplish in-game. Sinnoh is notorious for skyrocketing the scope creep to levels only Alola's dimension-hopping antics have since matched: Forget ancient beasts that can manipulate weather, now we have divine entities controlling concepts like time, space and emotions. In the span of two games players went from fighting a yakuza splinter faction to a madman who wants to remake the entire universe in his twisted image. What does all this translate to in practical game design terms? Well, in DP, Cyrus summons the respective guy on the box, and the sky gets weird for one cutscene before Uxie, Azelf and Mesprit immediately put an end to things. You fight Cyrus, he ragequits, and then you go up against Palkia or Dialga only to find out it's the same old Wild Pokemon AI Ultra Ball lottery as always, because apparently the disciples of god have the same intellect as the Bidoof on Route 201. No unique boss mechanics to work around, not even any prolonged mark on the world to establish the stakes like the RSE drought/flood sequences, just a bland spray and pray. Like I said earlier, Giratina stole their thunder in Platinum, and while still saddled with the same systemic issue of a boring slog "battle" he at least got to flex his otherwordly power in a fun way via the Distortion World.
Turn the page over to Legends Arceus, and a very different picture presents itself. Long before you see them the game already passively builds the twin dragons up via the Diamond and Pearl Clans and the space-time distortions. Neither of these things are even directly their doing, but they set the tone of an unknown land governed by beings larger than life, its native people arguing over their true visage and meaning. The aforementioned rainbow-colored skybox interference is smartly used as a recurring aura within the distortions, a sort of visual leitmotif.
Of course, once you get to the climax, things really begin to kick into gear. And they do so not via anything really crazy or unprecedented but the opposite, beginning with a change that is deceptively simple: Switching the order of events.
By making the universal breakdown come before the pieces of the Red Chain are acquired, Legends Arceus forces the player to actually stew in the dread of what's happening. The village you've spent all game helping to build has cast you out, understandably driven to paranoia and terror by the corruption over Mt. Coronet. You have to seek out the Lake Guardians on the fly to try and stop the impending disaster. There's no time limit, and yet it feels like at any moment something terrible is going to happen. This sequence's effectiveness owes a huge debt to the above track: I could've made a whole post about it, not since Pyramid Head's theme have I heard a song that sounds so utterly devoid of hope and yet so strangely beautiful.
Speaking of music, one thing I forgot to mention earlier is the relative mediocrity of the original Dialga & Palkia battle theme. It's... fine. Mystical and catchy enough. It just feels a tad underwhelming, is all. Nowadays it just serves to underscore how profound of a transformation it received in Legends Arceus:
Phase 1 is heavy and oppressive to a T while also being permeated with heavenly chimes and slightly discordant piano. This is the theme of a situation gone FUBAR, a fight that should've never happened. What are you, mere mortal, against an immaculate lifeform that will still exist long after the Sun has expanded and swallowed up the Earth? Even in this introductory bout, the gloves feel like they've come off: Depending on your choice, Dialga or Palkia is the cap-off to a pretty beefy level spike, your strongest foe so far (a bar it failed to achieve in DP, Cyrus' Weavile outleveling it by one!) that will mow you down with extremely powerful moves if you can't whittle it down and catch it in time. Even the level-up movesets have been adjusted for better results!
View attachment 693023View attachment 693024
And then you reach Phase 2 against the other brother.
What makes this fight so memorable, I think, is how weird it is. The battle theme is of course a well-known standout for being as much of a banger as it is completely incongruous with the rest of the game's musical direction, but there's also the matter of Palkia and Dialga's Origin Form designs. Hold whatever opinion you will about them, you can't call them forgettable, that's for sure; alien and surreal is as fitting a direction as they come. Incidentally, the boss fight's real cool too! Maybe the two versions could've been differentiated a bit more, but what's there is an intricate enough Noble battle with Spacial Rend and Roar of Time incorporated for good measure.
While having an actual considered boss battle is of course a huge boost, so much of what I've described comes down to absolutely immense improvements in presentation. Dialga and Palkia FEEL so much more powerful than in DPPt - one highlight that always comes to my mind is their Origin form transformations decimating the Temple of Sinnoh in a golden explosion. After 16 years a combination of better hardware and great direction has finally made the pair into the titanic presences they were always meant to be.
In conclusion: I cannot wait to see what Legends Z-A does with these two
As someone whose favorite of the trio is Palkia and who prefers their usage in this game for all the reasons I just went over: You are absolutely right and it is a testament to how good Arceus is at depicting the Sinnoh legendary cast
There are times where I wonder how different some of the older Pokemon games would have looked "if made now".
And I don't mean "remakes", I mean literally if those games were designed and coded now in 202x rather than in the 90s.
Despite the struggle with the performance, the Switch titles have been an increasing improving in the "epicality" (is this a word?) of the storytelling, and the "climax moment" have become both more scenic and with increasingly banger soundtracks (I swear I won't rant again about how good SwSh Eternatus fight is).
I am also looking forward to what they'll cook with ZA, though I think it's going to be a significantly different experience from "LA vs DPP", mainly cause while LA was telling a story taking place in the past, my understanding is that ZA is telling something that's happened *after* XY.
I also think Z-A is after XY but also we know literally nothing about it so for all we know it could be the past, concurrent or even all of the above.
Anyway honestly I think DP's climax would probably be pretty close, we'd just have more cutaways of things going south.
BW1 & 2 also seem like they'd be about the same, just with better visual fidelity and the ability to like...see characters emote more.
GS...would probably just get an entirely new plotline. Modern conventions usually involve the legend but the Rockets were all messing with a get rich scheme and radio waves (which only partially involved making strong pokemon) to get their boss back. The original is kind of nothing & as a remake HGSS mostly just spruced it up with a fancier radio tower end point, actual admins and having the kimono girls more involved with the box art bird as a sideplot. "Remnants of Team Rocket try to rebuild and bring back their leader" and "humanity's sins scare off one bird and make the other want to hope for a better future" are at least good building blocks to try and link together, but the end result would just be something very different.
RB would probably be different but also as the very first entry ever it's kind of...I mean every single thing about it would be different. RB was very of its era, so a modern one kickstarting off a series also would be. Who knows what direction they'd go in, whether they'd go for something high energy or low energy. And FRLG & Let's Go were more interested in sticking to RB for beter or worse so there's nothing to really hold on to.
RS got the remakes to actually amplify their changes. A lot more impressive when you dive through magma/the sea to reach the box legend about to go primal as the sun bares down or the downpour hits. I think even if it was made ground up today the only real change would maybe force in a fetch quest so it forces you tos ee "hey! the weather IS in fact going crazy everywhere" which is an effect you only see if you decide to just not do the plotline then & there. & then they had the Delta Episode for a fancier Rayquaza sequence to make up for Emerald. Speaking of which...
Emerald's very specific version of the climax would probably benefit the most from a modern telling just because it's two titans clashing with each other in the middle of the ocean (in the middle of...a city....)...represented the only way the GBA can by having their sprites face each other while 2 feet away the other important characters are going "hey...stop" and then its just sort of awkwardly stopped by rayquaza's sprite (which you set loose by climbing several floors of an uninteresting tower) coming in and yelling and then the other 2 sprites awkwardly shuffling off.
It's a clash that should have more going on but, well.
I should probably play through at least 1 more game besides Scarlet before I answer but I already thought about it..
I feel like for R/B and G/S they’d have trouble with making the rival so 1-dimensional in an antagonistic direction. In R/B I think they’d build up Giovanni more, esp the twist of him being the 8th gym leader. Also doing more with Mew and Mewtoo in the main plot.
In G/S I think they’d build up more to your rival having to confront Giovanni as his father figure. Making him more sympathetic throughout the story.
In B/W I think they’d struggle with the complexity of the theme. I kinda wanna write out how much I like it, and how they managed the make the Pokemon world feel so… American. I think they’d do much better with B2/W2, but wouldn’t understand how cool including all the little parts of Team Plasma’s aftermath was: the people who lost their pokemon, who stopped using pokeballs, gave away their mons. That worldbuilding was so cool because it really felt like their world had changed in a way making Cheren a gym leader and swapping some gyms around didn’t.
I feel like for R/B and G/S they’d have trouble with making the rival so 1-dimensional in an antagonistic direction. In R/B I think they’d build up Giovanni more, esp the twist of him being the 8th gym leader. Also doing more with Mew and Mewtoo in the main plot.
In G/S I think they’d build up more to your rival having to confront Giovanni as his father figure. Making him more sympathetic throughout the story.
In B/W I think they’d struggle with the complexity of the theme. I kinda wanna write out how much I like it, and how they managed the make the Pokemon world feel so… American. I think they’d do much better with B2/W2, but wouldn’t understand how cool including all the little parts of Team Plasma’s aftermath was: the people who lost their pokemon, who stopped using pokeballs, gave away their mons. That worldbuilding was so cool because it really felt like their world had changed in a way making Cheren a gym leader and swapping some gyms around didn’t.
Like in B/W they questioned their fundamental relationship with Pokemon and gave a real answer: it was a mutually beneficial relationship because we gave the pokemon a purpose, a reason to get stronger, and they returned that favor in their own way.
And then N. N was in a way the same as the pokemon: he was a creature of innocence and nature, until Gethitis pulled him away from all that, and gave him a name and purpose. And it wasn’t a good one, although he was misled to believe it was.
There’s something so American there. Like it’s the place where we do question those sorts of societal relationships.
One thing both S/V and B2/W2 had was a sort of realism to their world. Like how you’d beat the Team Plasma remnants and battle but it wouldn’t matter: you were still a kid and they’d kick you off their ship. Gethsis trying to murder you outright. And in S/V, area Zero. And there were similarities between Team Plasma’s remnants and Team Star
Fun fact I learned today: while Scatterbug's forms are considered identical in every respect aside from what pattern Vivillon they'll evolve into, and aren't officially counted as form differences at all, for a while a minor difference did exist in Pokemon Home: Scatterbug which would evolve into Icy Snow Vivillon had a different sprite to the other ones, looking back as opposed to looking forward (thus being the only one to match the appearance of the official artwork).
This has since been fixed so now all forms have the correct appearance.
Something I find amusing in TCG Pocket:
So Psychic-type Pokemon have two weaknesses: the ones that are originally Psychic or Ghost are weak to Darkness, while the ones that are originally Fairy are weak to Metal. However, the only Darkness Pokemon in the game so far are all originally Poison, which is weak to Psychic, resisted by Ghost, and super effective against Fairy. So the interactions between Psychic and Darkness are just completely backward.
So Psychic-type Pokemon have two weaknesses: the ones that are originally Psychic or Ghost are weak to Darkness, while the ones that are originally Fairy are weak to Metal. However, the only Darkness Pokemon in the game so far are all originally Poison, which is weak to Psychic, resisted by Ghost, and super effective against Fairy. So the interactions between Psychic and Darkness are just completely backward.
Oh ah you haven't seen resistances yet. When I played Pokemon TCG for Game Boy, flying mons (colorless) were resisitant to Fighting, so they took -30 damage, and it's how the type chart goes in the main games. But in this game Fighting is also Ground and ROCK, which means Flying resists Rock now, and this Rhydon card cannot hurt a freaking Pidgey with Horn Attack.
I'm still shocked that ORAS didn't do ANYTHING with Plusle and Minun. No official link between them, no mega, no new evo, nothing. Presumably GF recognized they aren't popular mons and decided not to waste their time, but it feels like they're worth a second attempt more than a lot of mons GF actually pushes.
In hindsight, I think GF should have made them have some sort of real powerful role with double battles.
When I was at a store selling a lot of plushies in Houston last April, they had both plusle and minun there. And there were only 50 different mons in total, which means some people must like them. Maybe an age group that has more disposable income (23-30 YOs)
I mean, they are pretty powerful as a pair - I've seen a video where a Plusle OHKOs a Groudon. Plus+Minus+Helping Hand makes for some potentially incredibly powerful moves. It's just that they're only at their best when they're paired - they're not terrible partners for any other Pokemon in doubles (Plusle is an absolute weapon in Colosseum) but they're at their strongest as a unit.