Little things you like about Pokémon

[Cobalt Empoleon]

I've always liked the subtle characterisation of Blue ditching his Raticate for team members with more potential, but I used to find it odd that he did so immediately after it evolved (i.e. at the time when it would have been at its strongest relative to other Pokemon of the same level). Now, though, I think it helps tie together the little tidbits we learn about him beyond the basic jerk rival persona.

His initial interest in being a trainer and filling up the Pokedex seems to stem more from childish oneupmanship than anything else, but it's quickly established that he has a genuine knack for both. He's already completed 40 entries when you meet him on the S.S. Anne, a feat he's managed while always being one step ahead of you. In Silph Co., he says that by working on the Pokedex, he's "starting to see what's strong and how they evolve" and his resulting intuition for Pokemon potential is exceptional; aside from legendaries and Dragonite, the Pokemon he adds to his team after ditching Raticate all end up being the strongest or tied-strongest representatives of their types, at least based on Gen 1 BST.

In FRLG, the rest of his team all grows two levels between the Cerulean and S.S. Anne battles, but his Rattata only gains one, even though that one level netted it a big power boost via evolution, which you'd expect would encourage Blue to train it more. It seems like he dumps Raticate so quickly because, once it evolves, he immediately intuits that this is as strong as it will ever get. Giving him access to knowledge that a first-time player likely doesn't have and having him deploy that knowledge with such ease and efficiency adds an interesting layer to a character that doesn't actually get much development or even dialogue.

 

[pika pal]

I've always liked the subtle characterisation of Blue ditching his Raticate for team members with more potential, but I used to find it odd that he did so immediately after it evolved (i.e. at the time when it would have been at its strongest relative to other Pokemon of the same level). Now, though, I think it helps tie together the little tidbits we learn about him beyond the basic jerk rival persona.

His initial interest in being a trainer and filling up the Pokedex seems to stem more from childish oneupmanship than anything else, but it's quickly established that he has a genuine knack for both outside of his rivalry with the player. He's already completed 40 entries when you meet him on the S.S. Anne, a feat he's managed while always being one step ahead of you. In Silph Co., he says that by working on the Pokedex, he's "starting to see what's strong and how they evolve" and his resulting intuition for Pokemon potential is exceptional; aside from legendaries and Dragonite, the Pokemon he adds to his team after ditching Raticate all end up being the strongest or tied-strongest representatives of their types, at least based on Gen 1 BST.

In FRLG, the rest of his team all grows two levels between the Cerulean and S.S. Anne battles, but his Rattata only gains one, even though that one level netted it a big power boost via evolution, which you'd expect would encourage Blue to train it more. It seems like he dumps Raticate so quickly because, once it evolves, he immediately intuits that this is as strong as it will ever get. Giving him access to knowledge that a first-time player likely doesn't have and having him deploy that knowledge with such ease and efficiency adds an interesting layer to a character that doesn't actually get much development or even dialogue.

Depending on how cynical or self-serving you take Blue's character to be, you could also read that he not only recognizes Raticate's early evolution as its "Peak" of sorts, but that he ditches it immediately after it evolves into arguably his strongest member (factoring in STAB Hyper Fang vs the mid-stage early-movesets of the other members) and then still loses in his next match against you. This in contrast to how a lot of kids playing the games around the protag's ~10-12 range would probably keep their Pokemon long past their "intended" drop-off point out of attachment, or at least replacement wouldn't be based on something "better" so much as "cooler" in a lot of cases (when we know Gamefreak definitely designed some Pokemon as crutches to be replaced in terms of gameplay).

 

[Hugin]

Thanks to DrPumpkinz for reminding me these exist. Yes, it's gen 1/Pikachu pandering and wholly unnecessary, but they're also fun. I like the designs, the signature moves actually have niche uses, and they aren't forced on you. If GF is going to do random variant mons, they could do a lot worse than this.

 

[DrrT]

Little bit of cool implied storytelling.

The Tao trio's base stat totals follow an interesting pattern. Kyurem has a BST of 660, Zekrom and Reshiram have a BST twenty points higher at 680, while the fused forms of Kyurem have yet another twenty points at 700. This suggests that the Original Dragon would have had a BST of 720.

I love how much of a lingering question mark the Original Dragon is, and the idea that it had power to rival Arceus Itself makes it even more exciting.

The Original Dragon is one of those things that, as disappointing it would be to my pre-teen self, we really should not see by now. It has been way too many years of anticipation and set up to deliver a creature that would keep up with the fans' expectations (and it doesn't help that they didn't even have the Kyurem fusions on mind, so if they ever had an Original Dragon design before the sequels, it wouldn't look like them or Kyurem at all).

I was hoping that Legends Genesect (?) or whatever would find some way around it with Paradoxes or whatever.

It is however very intiguing to think it could rival Arceus, but then again, because of SWSH's "everything is the most biggest better ever" attitude Zacian and Zamazenta also could individually, and we are probably never getting an origin story for them.

 

[R_N]

Related: I think I like the simplicity of the origin story of the wolves. Just wandering warrior wolves that happened into Galar when the worst calamity was befalling everyone

 

[Samtendo09]

Thanks to DrPumpkinz for reminding me these exist. Yes, it's gen 1/Pikachu pandering and wholly unnecessary, but they're also fun. I like the designs, the signature moves actually have niche uses, and they aren't forced on you. If GF is going to do random variant mons, they could do a lot worse than this.

Helps that Libre Pikachu, the Tough one, have further solo presence in TCG, Pokken (as a fighter different to standard Pikachu) and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (as an alt for Pikachu), as well as being the first to appear in Pokémon GO, indicating that Libre is a fan favorite among the audience and, ironically, being cooler than Rock Star Pikachu likely due to having a less cluttered costume.

It also help that Libre also have the most useful exclusive move in Flying Press, as 100 BP Fighting (+ Flying) at the time of obtaining Cosplay Pikachu is pretty powerful, with close second being Belle’s Icicle Crash. Or second most useful right behind Icicle Crash if you truly value Ice + Electric coverage akin to BoltBeam.

 

[pika pal]

This one's simpler: The "Advance Adventure" background track from the Gen 3 anime is just really sick sounding.

My main evidence would be an edit a friend of mine made overlaying it with the Ash vs Leon finale, which I unfortunately can't share directly since video files aren't allowed and it's not online anywhere to link.

 

[Mex]

This one's simpler: The "Advance Adventure" background track from the Gen 3 anime is just really sick sounding.

My main evidence would be an edit a friend of mine made overlaying it with the Ash vs Leon finale, which I unfortunately can't share directly since video files aren't allowed and it's not online anywhere to link.

Advance Adventure is great, but I do feel like it gets overused around the start of adv. It's probably just because it's the japanese OP at the time and they liked the sound of it for cool moments, but I definitely feel that they used it a lot better around Battle Frontier through Diamond and Pearl. Sad it wasn't used at all during the sinnoh league though

 

[DrPumpkinz]

I like how Game Freak didn't sidestep the idea of "Pokemon die when their HP hits zero" by just having the battle text say "faint". They also went out of their way to establish death as a very real concept in the Pokemon world, with Pokemon Tower being a key point in the story, and most future games including a graveyard and real ghosts.

"Your Pokemon isn't dead. THIS is what being dead looks like."

 

[DrrT]

My little brother has finally managed to get Arceus in LA, but as I told him, now the fun part starts (okay not as fun as Volo but you get the idea).

The Path of Solitude is very entertaining. It's full of anime references also, which I'm sure someone more interested in them than me may appreciate. The Tenacity ones are also interesting, namely because you actually fight named characters you care about unlike most battle facilities (and you can get evolution items for free, still wild we have a completely, proper single-player Pokemon game). Speaking of battle facilities, he has yet to reach Arceus in the Eternal Battle Reverie, but it's just so refreshing compared to others where it can get so monotonous to just score random wins in a row until the boss shows up. Kinda wish it rewarded something more than a stamp but I guess that it's just by nature of being set after you have already catched God itself. All things considered Daybreak can be lots of fun, really feels underappreciated.

He wants the 50 win streak so he has maxed out his Arceus, but it was still not enough due to the triple battle against the Pokemon of Myth and the ridiculous HP of a Blissey. His last team members were fittingly enough destroyed by the single Giratina battle and its awesome solo theme (trough I still prefer Origin Dialga/Palkia's, I can't deny Giratina's scarier and intense when you don't have enough points to face it propertly).

Really hoping it returns in ZA where we won't have access to a Legend Plate Arceus as a save button.

(I have no idea why some parts are written in bigger front, is it because I copied it from my notes app? I like to write there details of how his playthrough went to see how good the game may be fir someone that has never played the Sinnoh games. Sorry for the mess).

 

[Yung Dramps]

I've always gotten a kick out of the weirdly high amount of Kalos fanservice in LA. I guess knowing what we know now it isn't so surprising, and in absolute terms it's not a lot, but it's way more than you'd expect. They made the last Totem-adjacent of this Sinnoh game a Snowbelle Gym reference, that's pretty funny.

 

[R_N]

L:A had quite a few references from all over the series, so it's not unusual for Gen 6 to have its fair share, especially 2 generations on. Doubt it was a secret hint towards Z-A either....
They must have really been tickled by the idea of an "older" Pokemon game having a chance to show off all kinds of connections.

 

[Yung Dramps]

The precise moment when I knew definitively that Alola/Gen 7 has the Mandate of Heaven was upon finding out the old lady from Power of Us was voiced by Masako Nozawa

 

[DrrT]

Today I discovered this page and it's just pretty cool how much detail can go into a region- I can only speak for Paldea but I assume the rest are similar. Trough admitedly, my favourite area, Area Zero, seems mostly original (and does the right thing by replacing Madrid lol) so maybe we need more of that in the main series. It must be kind of fun to travel to different places of the world as inspiration, I envy them.

Another thing that it's just kind of sad but I do appreciate: that Let's Go had megas and regional variants. Not my style of games at all, but they have more innovations as a remake than BDSP (this all comes from a discussion with a friend who belueves ORAS is a worse remake than BDSP). They even change the rival's team so it has its own identity and isn't just bootleg Blue (even if Tracey himself does seem like literal bootleg Blue?)

 

[Yung Dramps]

Drrt talked in the boss fights thread about how much of the final Volo battle's appeal hinges on surprise and it reminded me of how, while there's ultimately still so, so much we don't know, the Z-A reveal trailer showed off just enough to assuage what was easily my biggest concern about any bid to continue Legends as a subseries: That a sequel would just be "Legends Arceus, but in <region>".

I cannot tell you how annoyed I got at so many fan pitches for a second entry unimaginatively recycling so much of that game's setup and structure with seemingly no greater motive beyond "Legends Arceus did it, so I must." For the record, I'm not exempting myself from this, I fell into the mental trap quite a bit too. So many of the things that make LA the game it is are fundamentally tied to it being set in Sinnoh. You can't just do Volo again but with Red or Colress or Diantha because Volo's character concept is built on those Cynthia and Cyrus character parallels and the aforementioned surprise. You can't spam the isekai setup because the only other Pokemon capable of such a thing are Celebi and Hoopa, and they don't have a set of progression markers tied to them nor a vested interest in human-Pokemon harmony. And you certainly can't default to all these games being set in the past because no other region's identity is so fundamentally tied to history and mythology.

For these reasons I am so relieved that Z-A has chosen to hone in on a completely different premise. This isn't an arbitrary rush to superficially ape its predecessor's acclaim - They've thought this through carefully and are making a game that plays to Kalos' strengths as a setting and stands apart from not just LA but every other mainline Pokemon game. Even the title is unique!

 

[Rapti]

And you certainly can't default to all these games being set in the past because no other region's identity is so fundamentally tied to history and mythology.

This part I'll have to disagree with
after all what makes human countries, counties, is their shared mythology and history

 

[R_N]

This part I'll have to disagree with
after all what makes human countries, counties, is their shared mythology and history

Also -and while I do not think "Legends" always means it has to be in the past (I mean, a legend can get it start anywhere if nothing else) - the past is kind of pretty strongly tied to Kalos' identity considering the Tower of Mastery, the lineage of Kings, the War, the [checks notes] giant flower nuclear launch platform, the [squints at my note sheet] final line of the game being the 3000 immortal wandering King reuniting with his revived immortal floette.
The past is important backdrop to most of the games (the feuding brothers in Unova, the Darkest Day and """"lost""""" history of Galar, the expedition in Area Zero, etc) but it's really forward in XY. one of your first set pieces is a long standing fancy palace!

 

[Yung Dramps]

Ok, a bit poorly worded I confess, but really it's more of a vibes thing, yknow? Something about the legendaries, really. Palkia, Dialga, Regigigas, Arceus they feel more like "game set in the past" big players than Xerneas or Yveltal

A viable alternative woulda been Johto for obvious reasons

 

[DrrT]

Drrt talked in the boss fights thread about how much of the final Volo battle's appeal hinges on surprise and it reminded me of how, while there's ultimately still so, so much we don't know, the Z-A reveal trailer showed off just enough to assuage what was easily my biggest concern about any bid to continue Legends as a subseries: That a sequel would just be "Legends Arceus, but in <region>".

I cannot tell you how annoyed I got at so many fan pitches for a second entry unimaginatively recycling so much of that game's setup and structure with seemingly no greater motive beyond "Legends Arceus did it, so I must." For the record, I'm not exempting myself from this, I fell into the mental trap quite a bit too. So many of the things that make LA the game it is are fundamentally tied to it being set in Sinnoh. You can't just do Volo again but with Red or Colress or Diantha because Volo's character concept is built on those Cynthia and Cyrus character parallels and the aforementioned surprise. You can't spam the isekai setup because the only other Pokemon capable of such a thing are Celebi and Hoopa, and they don't have a set of progression markers tied to them nor a vested interest in human-Pokemon harmony. And you certainly can't default to all these games being set in the past because no other region's identity is so fundamentally tied to history and mythology.

For these reasons I am so relieved that Z-A has chosen to hone in on a completely different premise. This isn't an arbitrary rush to superficially ape its predecessor's acclaim - They've thought this through carefully and are making a game that plays to Kalos' strengths as a setting and stands apart from not just LA but every other mainline Pokemon game. Even the title is unique!

Even as someone who was extremely disappointed on Kalos being picked for a Legends game and who has some worries about it being *too* different to LA (particularly Mega trainer battles and excuses to have non-automatic dex entries that would require tasks if it isn't set on the past) I completely agree.

See, looking back, my dear Legends Genesect/Kyurem whatever would be just Unova in the past (reallistically it wouldn't have anything to do with Paradox mons, but I also wanted them to be in there for multiple forms of the OG dragon sheanigans) because I love LA and the Unova duology. But that would have been the wrong choice. We can't praise LA for being such a breath of fresh air and so innovative and then ask the very next entry to be the same but in another region, is not fair.

I guess Legends Celebi could still have time travel, and a Legends Terapagos in a decade could be wacky if we get to visit multiple timelines, but you get my point. Space-time distorsions sound like Sinnoh things in nature. While I still think Kalos needed more a proper remake or Z version, if they want to try being innovative this way I can only hope I will not hate Kalos this time around.

(I'm exhausted and sleepy so sorry if that didn't make much sense)

 

[TerrickTerran]

A little thing I like about Pokemon....the satisfaction of finally beating a game you stopped playing ages ago. Today I finally finished Pokemon Sword. (After I had already finished Pokemon Violet's main game and first DLC)

 

[Yung Dramps]

View attachment 615100
NOW I'D BUY THAT FOR A DOLLAR

Update: The fuel cell is a sandwich

https://x.com/i/web/status/1830139653997150577

 

[DrrT]

The new GO loading screen is hilarious. Charizard *is* scary to the fandom, specially after the XA announcement.

A little thing I like about Pokemon....the satisfaction of finally beating a game you stopped playing ages ago. Today I finally finished Pokemon Sword. (After I had already finished Pokemon Violet's main game and first DLC)

Funny, I played Sword right after the Teal Mask because I couldn't wait on Indigo Disk (and because of personal reasons that make me feel aphaty towards things I used to love). Tecnically I still have to complete the Crown Tundra. I don't know if Lair Zygarde is really as much of a monster as people claim.

 

[Kin+ak (✧∇✧)]

The new GO loading screen is hilarious. Charizard *is* scary to the fandom, specially after the XA announcement.

Funny, I played Sword right after the Teal Mask because I couldn't wait on Indigo Disk (and because of personal reasons that make me feel aphaty towards things I used to love). Tecnically I still have to complete the Crown Tundra. I don't know if Lair Zygarde is really as much of a monster as people claim.

if you don't have at least 2 ice types and a support, you may as well quit

 

[AtlasNeo]

A few small things I like about Pokemon + small story
Playing through a bunch of the older games right now. It makes me appreciate some of the changes pokemon have made over time.

1) TMs going from one time use > perma use
2) HMs being replaced by overworld means of travel.

Those are some pretty bigs one all things considered though, right? How about this?

3) The dynamics of music
Think BW. Running added instruments, opelucid/nacrene/more had dynamic music as well as being able to activate certain instruments e.g accumula, village bridge. Think this was a thing only in BW? Nope! SV does it too! Have a listen to the overworld themes, as well as the battle themes...

4) Being able to reorganize moves in a moveset.
Oh my god. I swear down I never see people do this. Might just be me impulsively really wanting to make sure everything is right, but I like to have things in a certain order. Also if I'm making an ingame set based on an online team/set (e.g smogon analysis) I like to be able to have exactly as its presented lol

5) GAME FREAK's Morimoto.
I dunno. Always liked these battles. Especially in gen 5 for some reason. Maybe the fact it felt like I was battling someone from GF, who specifically made a team to put into the game on their behalf?

 

[CPU]

4) Being able to reorganize moves in a moveset.
Oh my god. I swear down I never see people do this. Might just be me impulsively really wanting to make sure everything is right, but I like to have things in a certain order. Also if I'm making an ingame set based on an online team/set (e.g smogon analysis) I like to be able to have exactly as its presented lol

The games have always had this ability. In Gen 1 and 2 it was done by using the Select button in-battle. The Select button was also used to reorganize your item inventory.