Little things you like about Pokémon

Bakugames said:
as more and more of the concept of a design shows itself in animations, the less you'll be able to learn from the 2d stock art (and from screenshots of models from leaks)
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And not just this, but also the less you’ll be able to learn from casually seeing them in-game. Especially with the shift towards open world and therefore a greater percentage of optional trainers, a lot of Pokémon won’t be seen in a battle setting unless you catch and use it itself. And even if you do see a Pokémon once or twice in optional battles you participate in, half the time you’re not paying much mind to the animations of the enemy. If they get to attack and don’t get outsped and OHKOed, anyway.

It doesn’t mean having good and thought out animations is bad obviously, but it retains the importance of mons’ concepts being fully present and clear in their base visual designs.

Maushold is a great example of this where it’s not used in a boss fight (afair) so the main time you see it if you don’t use one is when it’s walking around in the overworld, and that animation is nothing extraordinary. And I’m pretty sure it’s only in that easily-missable route to the Pokémon League at like, level 4, when the only time you actually have to go on that route is the endgame. So if you wanted to use one and just never encountered it, at that point when you first see it you don’t want to train it up.

Similarly in SwSh a lot of great mons suffered from being Wild Area encounters. It’s a weird impact of open world design, but people only like things they’re exposed to and an open world gives the devs less control over what players do get exposed to, which can definitely harm the popularity of some of these Pokémon. Base game SV had “type specialists” for every type, albeit some of those are single-Pokémon spotlights in the titans, and a bunch of new Pokémon still fell through the cracks. Pretty sure they stuck Squawkabilly in the opening cutscene to ensure you’d see it once, because a lot of players will never see one again lol. EDIT: Actually E4 Larry uses one doesn’t he, but you get the point

Don’t get me wrong, not necessarily a unique phenomenon for open world Pokémon, but it is a reversion too. Gens 1-3 had some hyper obscure mons, 1% encounters not used on any notable trainer teams and all that. Gen 4’s obscure new mons happened through a different way (event mons / honey tree encounters mainly) and D/P also ensured every mon was used by a trainer somewhere. But Gens 5-7 mostly prioritised players getting exposure to the new mons besides like, Dhelmise, which was beneficial to those gems of new mons IMO. Modern Pokémon did used to prioritise this, I assume the reason 8/9 fail in this regard more than 5-7 is teething pains with making it work with the open world.

[wrt Maushold having mouths… yeah show me the mouths in the video game please lmao, it shouldn’t be an obscure trait for the mice mons]
 
I'll also say that just from how the game works you'll probably see the majority of Pokemon. There's not that many Pokemon that are sequestered to very small side areas and t he game for better or worse spawns a lot of Pokemon at the same time. Squawkabilly isn't used by many trainers but any time you go through an area it exists in, it's fairly common. Tandemaus is probably the hardest one to see, mostly because it is so very tiny in fairly low-traffic areas, but I'll also say you...kind of get the gist of it from its artwork.
Two tiny, simple mice that act in tandem. You don't see the extent of their expressions, like their mouth in particular, but I think that's fine for selling the shtick. You do see one in game and its like oh! Big mouths! And also how they act in tandem in all their other actions.
 
Celever said:
And not just this, but also the less you’ll be able to learn from casually seeing them in-game. Especially with the shift towards open world and therefore a greater percentage of optional trainers, a lot of Pokémon won’t be seen in a battle setting unless you catch and use it itself. And even if you do see a Pokémon once or twice in optional battles you participate in, half the time you’re not paying much mind to the animations of the enemy. If they get to attack and don’t get outsped and OHKOed, anyway.

It doesn’t mean having good and thought out animations is bad obviously, but it retains the importance of mons’ concepts being fully present and clear in their base visual designs.

Maushold is a great example of this where it’s not used in a boss fight (afair) so the main time you see it if you don’t use one is when it’s walking around in the overworld, and that animation is nothing extraordinary. And I’m pretty sure it’s only in that easily-missable route to the Pokémon League at like, level 4, when the only time you actually have to go on that route is the endgame. So if you wanted to use one and just never encountered it, at that point when you first see it you don’t want to train it up.

Similarly in SwSh a lot of great mons suffered from being Wild Area encounters. It’s a weird impact of open world design, but people only like things they’re exposed to and an open world gives the devs less control over what players do get exposed to, which can definitely harm the popularity of some of these Pokémon. Base game SV had “type specialists” for every type, albeit some of those are single-Pokémon spotlights in the titans, and a bunch of new Pokémon still fell through the cracks. Pretty sure they stuck Squawkabilly in the opening cutscene to ensure you’d see it once, because a lot of players will never see one again lol. EDIT: Actually E4 Larry uses one doesn’t he, but you get the point

Don’t get me wrong, not necessarily a unique phenomenon for open world Pokémon, but it is a reversion too. Gens 1-3 had some hyper obscure mons, 1% encounters not used on any notable trainer teams and all that. Gen 4’s obscure new mons happened through a different way (event mons / honey tree encounters mainly) and D/P also ensured every mon was used by a trainer somewhere. But Gens 5-7 mostly prioritised players getting exposure to the new mons besides like, Dhelmise, which was beneficial to those gems of new mons IMO. Modern Pokémon did used to prioritise this, I assume the reason 8/9 fail in this regard more than 5-7 is teething pains with making it work with the open world.

[wrt Maushold having mouths… yeah show me the mouths in the video game please lmao, it shouldn’t be an obscure trait for the mice mons]
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Maybe it's easy to miss Maushold on your first playthrough, but SV is one of the best games in terms of being able to play through with any mon in the dex. Maushold is just a "look it up", but if you want to use a pseudolegend or other ultra-rare lategame encounter*? On your later playthroughs, you basically can freely get 1-2 Titan badges, reach anywhere in the game, spam balls at the mon you want, and either use it or breed a lvl 1 version to play with. Yes, that's not the normal or efficient route, but it's POSSIBLE, which is more than I can say for half the dex in most pokemon games.

*except Paradox mons, and even then you have the postgame and DLCs.
 
I appreciate the little details Gold Silver Crystal did that no other mainline Pokemon game did again, not even its remake. Like how it's the only game with a night variation of the wild battle theme (and only in johto), had wild Pokemon that could run away from you not counting the roamers, or how it's the only game where the Continue screen (not referring to the Title screen) has a theme.
 
pokemon4eva said:
I appreciate the little details Gold Silver Crystal did that no other mainline Pokemon game did again, not even its remake. Like how it's the only game with a night variation of the wild battle theme (and only in johto), had wild Pokemon that could run away from you not counting the roamers, or how it's the only game where the Continue screen (not referring to the Title screen) has a theme.
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There's a night time version of the wild battle theme? I don't remember that; I'd been looking through the soundtrack listings lately too and I only remember seeing Johto & Kanto wild battles
 
Smogon, Showdown, and really Pokémon in general are all much broader than I can fully perceive. So many ways to play the games. So many ways talk about the series. So many ways to partake in Pokémon's communities. So many possibilities that can be made within the World of Pokémon itself even. If you don't like one part of Pokémon, you can usually hop into a different part of Pokémon. If you want to make the most of your experience, you can cross through multiple different departments of what the series is all about.

It's absolutely insane just how big and flexible the Pokémon franchise is.
 
Ransei said:
Smogon, Showdown, and really Pokémon in general are all much broader than I can fully perceive. So many ways to play the games. So many ways talk about the series. So many ways to partake in Pokémon's communities. So many possibilities that can be made within the World of Pokémon itself even. If you don't like one part of Pokémon, you can usually hop into a different part of Pokémon. If you want to make the most of your experience, you can cross through multiple different departments of what the series is all about.

It's absolutely insane just how big and flexible the Pokémon franchise is.
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the breadth of smogon never ceases to amaze me tbh. between current gen competitive, 8 old gens' worth of same, oi, smeargle's studio, circus, pet mods, oms, lower tiers... so much ground covered by one website. you can even spend ten years doing what i do and not really posting much about pokemon at all on the pokemon website. really quite miraculous when you think about it. thank you to Tom Smogs, The Inventor Of Smogon.
 
Ransei said:
Smogon, Showdown, and really Pokémon in general are all much broader than I can fully perceive. So many ways to play the games. So many ways talk about the series. So many ways to partake in Pokémon's communities. So many possibilities that can be made within the World of Pokémon itself even. If you don't like one part of Pokémon, you can usually hop into a different part of Pokémon. If you want to make the most of your experience, you can cross through multiple different departments of what the series is all about.

It's absolutely insane just how big and flexible the Pokémon franchise is.
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I’m actually going to disagree with this… sort of. It’s not anything you said that I have an issue with. It’s the developers, specifically of the games but sometimes cracks show up in other media, that have all of this flexibility at their disposal and just… don’t do anything with it? I can’t be the only one who feels this way, right? The world of Pokémon (which itself goes beyond just “Earth with Pokémon” nowadays) is such a grand foundation for all sorts of ideas, providing opportunities for creative storytelling, dynamic world building, and engaging activities.

And yet, not only do the developers of the games rarely stray away from what has worked before, but the relationships between the greater Pokémon fanbase and Pokémon’s owners in regards to the intellectual property (I.P.) isn’t exactly the greatest. I’ll keep this brief, but the point I’m trying to make is that Pokémon is as broadly appealing to the masses as it is because of us, the fans. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that Pokémon’s “hardcore fans” and content creators care more about the I.P. than the developers and owners do. Smogon and Pokémon Showdown have provided fans with so many opportunities for expression and entertainment, which is really great, but the fact that the fans have to step in and take risks that The Pokémon Company or whoever else isn’t going to make is emblematic of a greater problem. Any time the fans want to add something to the Pokémon world that’s outside of what the developers and owners deem “acceptable”, such attempts are either ignored, actively shot down, or some combination of the two.

I just hesitate to call Pokémon “big and flexible” when the franchise they’ve created has to be exactly as they want it to be with little variation, whether that come from assistance from the fans or various innovations within the games, anime, et cetera. Like I’ve mentioned, the games are the biggest culprit of this lack of creativity, constantly reusing older ideas and concepts instead of taking risks and trying new things. Then again, I understand that money talks, and sometimes the fans don’t financially support said risks when they do try and be a bit more flexible. I just wish the fans and the developers could help inspire and motivate each other more than what we’re seeing, really. It took them how long exactly for them to make an official “Pokémon Forums” site? And heaven forbid The Pokémon Company ever release an official product that’s anywhere near the amount of love put into Pokémon Showdown.
 
DrumstickGaming said:
So I was reading about Tandemaus and Maushold and-

View attachment 715113
"Mouse math" is just such a funny concept to base a Pokemon move on I can't help but smirk at it

It's amazing how we're at literally 1,000 Pokemon now and we're still getting creative and silly ideas for Pokemon and moves


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Maushold just nails the "simple but cute" charm, it feels like a modern Gen 1 design in the best of ways even if it's using the Dugtrio / Magneton design mentality (which is fine to me). Tandemaus evolving offscreen if not your lead is also such a sneaky joke that references it being an explosive breeder

Bonus points for the 1/100 chance for a Family of Three Maushold

Just great theming all around really.
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Gotta love "pokemon moves that make more sense in japanese"
Gotta be my favorite genders
 
One thing I noticed while watching Pokemon Horizons on Netflix is that while Rotom Phones carry over from last gen, including the previous anime series (Pokemon Journeys), and our main cast members use them, a cool thing that Liko and co.'s Rotom Phones have going for them is the ability to stretch and retract at will: their Rotom Phones can transform into Rotom Tablets. Rotom Phones are based on modern smartphones, but Rotom Phones having a "Pad Form" in Horizons is a nice shoutout to tablets like the iPad and Galaxy Tab, which are also a big part of everyday tech and life.

Even though we didn't see it in SV I like to think that the Rotom Phones in Paldea in the gameverse have the ability to transform into tablets and back to smartphones at will. Back in Journeys we saw Rotom taking possession of smartphone devices to become Rotom Phones for Ash and his friends, but I'd love to see what kind of devices they have Rotom take over to have them become tablets that can switch.

(now if only my Galaxy S24 and Galaxy Tab S9 could merge into one device that could switch at will IRL that would be funny, even though I know that's not ever gonna happen)
 
bdt2002 said:
And heaven forbid The Pokémon Company ever release an official product that’s anywhere near the amount of love put into Pokémon Showdown.
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I'm pretty sure I read somewhere in the Forums that the Pokémon Company is aware of Pokémon Showdown and they allow it to keep running. So there is some sort of cooperation even if it's a loose one. For my part I hope that PokéCo never releases an official battle simulator because it wouldn't be free and they would shut down Pokémon Showdown the moment they decided to have one of their own which with PokéCo track record would be a far inferior product to what we have right now.
 
Lewtwo posted this weird magazine of Pokemon BW and I'm dying laughing
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Hilbert the Hedgehog REAL?!?!
 
Y'know, even though it's kinda odd to see two Johto starters serving as members of the starter trio for Legends: Z-A, both Chikorita and Totodile being starters here means that this in tandem with Cyndaquil being a starter for Legends: Arceus has the two Legends games giving all three of the Johto starters some love between the two of them.

It's nice to see that at with this revelation, by the end of the Switch era all three of the Johto starters will have some sort of bone thrown to them. Meganium, Typhlosion, and Feraligatr all deserve it, having been for years the starters who got the least amount of love and spending years living in the shadows of the Kanto starters who always got star billing in the greater franchise.
 
I think ppl really like Gen 2, I see a lot of love for it on the internet. It’s my favorite gen in some ways and I loved how they threw it a bone :)

nikki800 said:
I met many new friends with similar interests.
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If I was to meet a socially awkward, more nerdy person who needed friends but didn’t like sports, I’d recommend Pokemon and anime. Having been a teacher at a college and high school, the kids LOVE both of them.

The best conversations I’ve gotten into with 30 year olds have come from Pokemon too. One time I was at a bar and a guy busted out his switch to show me how he’d completed the L:A dex.
 
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