Little things you like about Pokémon

I don't know if this was an unpopular opinion or not, so I guess it has to be here to default.

Even if I'm iffy about the actual mechanics, I do really like how Megas are coming bacj to the TCG in an aesthetic sense. I was never really a fan of the words taking so much space on the original ones, specially since they were on Japanese and literally just spelled out their singke attack which you could read on the card anyways.

I know Japan finds it fancy to use English words and I'm sure those alongside the crazy damage (hi Charizard X, talk about overkill) were very hype back then, but I don't think it really worked for me. It's nice to see they are going with simple, mote dynamic designs.
 
There's something just inherently hilarious to me about Nuzleaf and Shiftry being able to use Explosion. They're the most humanoid Pokémon with the move* and it puts a funny visual in my head where they pull a Saibaman to blow up on something.

*Mewtwo gets Self-destruct but it's also less funny to me because I dunno.
 
QuentinQuonce said:
Interestingly in the Adventures manga Emerald even calls out Explosion as a cheap and dirty way to win a fight, since it's basically guaranteed to get a KO but takes very little actual skill or forethought. That's Dark all over.
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Arguably, a lot of Dark moves are designed for the opposite, needing to either get the most out of added utility or get the right setup/prediction to compensate for low initial damage. Samurott-H feels like a standout example of this: all of Sucker Punch, Ceaseless Edge, and Knock Off are all cheap and dirty in their own way, but the brute force is from its water STAB.
 
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This is the Scarlet and Violet version of the Delinquent class fightable only in Kitakami, and previously only challengeable in ORAS. I just learned about this class today, and I think that this is extremely sad that the class not well known because this design looks amazing and radiates peak energy. I wish they could become part of the main catalogue of trains like Punk Girls and Swimmers because they represent a rare niche by representing a tough, scary but confident women that is more casual compared to something like the Veteran or the Battle Girl.
also this is goalspoasting lmao

(jokingly inviting any potential artists from Smeargle's Studio to make more fanart of them).
 
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Yung Dramps said:
Both Legends games thus far have taken iconic landmarks from the original game (Mt. Coronet and Prism Tower respectively) and made them ever-present central focal points the map design is oriented around. That feels like a very purposeful and cool little throughline
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I mean their "base" games also did the same thing. They're the literal central point of their regions. It'd be harder & weirder to make a Sinnoh/Kalos game that doesn't have them as some form of omnipresent focal point. Even if Z-A were starting in a different part of the region (which..well, is literally what L:A did), Lumiose would likely both literally & figuratively loom in the background because it's the largest city in Kalos through which every route eventually circles back to to get anywhere else, likely provides most of the region's power, the location of a lot of Lysandre's labs, etc.
 
R_N said:
I mean their "base" games also did the same thing. They're the literal central point of their regions. It'd be harder & weirder to make a Sinnoh/Kalos game that doesn't have them as some form of omnipresent focal point. Even if Z-A were starting in a different part of the region (which..well, is literally what L:A did), Lumiose would likely both literally & figuratively loom in the background because it's the largest city in Kalos through which every route eventually circles back to to get anywhere else, likely provides most of the region's power, the location of a lot of Lysandre's labs, etc.
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While true geographically, Lumiose Tower specifically felt a lot less integral to XY to me than something like Mt. Coronet and Spear Pillar did to Sinnoh, probably in large part because very few significant moments took place at the former (like the final villain team confrontation and Legendary being in Geosenge Town instead).
 
Lumiose City as a whole does feel integral to XY, if we count the entire city as the centerpiece of the region. We meet Sycamore, Lysandre, and Diantha there for the first time, Prism Tower is the Gym in the mid-game, and it has Lysandre Labs for the Team Flare climax and in the post game the Looker episode takes place there. So as a whole the city surrounding Prism Tower is a big centerpiece of the game, and one we repeatedly go back to, even if Prism Tower itself doesn't feel that significant (and frankly it was hard to be since it's a man-made tall but thin tower).

That said with that in mind both it and Mt. Coronet in DP really shared the same "role" in their respective regions which was being a centerpiece of the region and one that connected everywhere we went. Much like how Lumiose City, built around Prism Tower, connects to five different routes and all the route networks loop back to it, Mt. Coronet was a connecting piece of the entire region that we would visit several times along the way, and unlock more of it via HMs as we progressed through the game, and the route networks all connected via Mt. Coronet.

So it's kinda cool that the Legends games based off them really emphasize the fact that the two regions have that sort of "centerpiece" landmark that is the linchpin of the region, and Z-A is based entirely in Lumiose so Prism Tower, the city's centerpiece, is highlighted this time around and presumably some major story elements will occur there this time around.

(That said, I also do find it cool how the two regions are similar in that regard but also contrasting. One having a giant, natural mountain that stands tall at the top of the region, the other having a tall, man-made tower that stands tall in the center of what is the biggest city we've seen so far).
 
Just A Seaking said:
I don't even like raids as they've been implemented in most cases, but using raid mechanics for legendaries really is the way to go with them imo; it makes their battles appropriately distinct, fitting in scale, and engaging, and spares the tedium of throwing Ultra Balls until one works. I'm not a fan of legendary fetch quests in general but there's a huge difference in how enjoyable it is in, say, ORAS versus in SWSH where it's tied to Dynamax Adventures.
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Bringing this over here because in addition to the Dynamax Adventures -which I loved, even with only CPUs and even against the "hard" ones- I've liked how they've done this a few other times:
  • When it's time to catch Necrozma in USUM, it's a guaranteed catch. Mechnically it makes sense, you already fought it twice and one of those is the toughest boss in the series, so why make you drag it out again. And thematically you find it in a crater after getting owned hard.
  • Eternatus is effectively just a long cutscene battle, but it is pretty cool to see it in motion and ending a three phase battle including in a "raid" against a form you never get to use with a capture is a nice capstone!
  • Ogerpon is a really fun battle, you have to face it through all four of its tera masks and then get the guaranteed capture.
  • Ursaluna's not a legend, but it functions similarly; you do its fun side quest, do a "big" battle and then catch it at the end
  • Terapagos almost killed me what the hell you can't do that that's illegal

Dialga, Palkia & Rayquaza were also fun raid battles as well, even if they were very simple. Mighty Mewtwo....less so.

I think I'd really like it if they embraced the "boss" -> capture method for more legends, even if they're simpler mechanically (like if not just throw them in a raid setting ala DA, then literally just the extended health bar and maybe a stat buff) than the "story important" ones. And maybe still have a few legends maintain the standard style just for flavor.
 
Playing through Platinum for the 20 billionth time and just now I realized "man Team Galactic grunt's teams are so boring and easy..." which then caused me to have a shocking realization that caused my mood to turn around on them: for all the Croagunks, Glameows, and Stunkys the grunts will have even late into the game, they never, ever have any of the evolved forms of those because they want to keep them specially tied to the Commanders. This also applies to some of the grunts having Murkrow and even Golbat; none of them have a Honchkrow or Crobat because it would make Cyrus having one less special. I'm sure this is a trend that expands to most evil teams but I only just noticed it now in Gen 4 and thought it was very neat as a design choice even if it has the drawback of making the grunts dreadfully easy.
 
CPU said:
Oh yeah, the Stadium color shifts were a big incentive for me to nickname things as a kid. I don't know how it works exactly, even the goofy nicknames from Stadium 2's Challenge Cup (PIKAchu and pikaCHU, etc) could produce substantial results
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Bulbapedia says it's determined using the bytes of nickname, trainer name, and ID number. So randomly changing capitalization would definitely do something.
 
CPU said:
Oh yeah, the Stadium color shifts were a big incentive for me to nickname things as a kid. I don't know how it works exactly, even the goofy nicknames from Stadium 2's Challenge Cup (PIKAchu and pikaCHU, etc) could produce substantial results
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There's some pretty good writeups/summaries and a visualizer of the mechanic here.
https://projectpokemon.org/home/forums/topic/55978-stadium-nicknames-and-color-changes/
https://bluemoonfalls.com/pages/general/stadium-hues
https://bluemoonfalls.com/pages/tools/hue-previewer
 
Will's rematch team in HGSS has him lead with a Bronzong. A Bronzong with Heatproof. In the remakes that came immediately after the Sinnoh games, where iirc literally every NPC in the region had Levitate on their Bronzor or Bronzong. So a player is almost certainly going to be conditioned to assume any stupid blue bronze thing they see cannot be hit by Ground moves.

Masterful troll.
 
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