Little things you like about Pokémon

Pikachu315111

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Something I like with SM/USUM is the bunch of silly moments that you can come across during the story.

(...)

This game is intentionally more relaxed and I for one really like these little humorous touches sprinkled here and there.
In addition, because he have these lighter moments, the more darker/somber/serious moments also feel more impactful. Hapu's grandmother talking about the death of her husband (which traumatized their Machamp), all of Po Town, Aether Paradise and the true Lusamine reveal (aka her "trophy" room), Lillie changing to her Z-form & standing up to her mother, Lusamine fusing with Nihilego, Eevium Z side quest, Ultra Beast hunt mission in SM (mainly the backstory with Looker, Nanu, and the killed Faller), learning about Guzma's backstory, Necrozma taking over Nebby and absorbing all the light, etc.. Because of the goofy moments when these moments happen its a mood whiplash (in a good way) that its serious time and you better pay attention.

I like when there are puns in the Pokedex entries. For example, the entry for Bounsweet in Ultra Moon: "It tries to resist being swallowed by a bird Pokémon by spinning the sepals on its head. It's usually a fruitless attempt." Love it. There are others too but this was the main one I could remember.
Gen VII's Pokedex entries is gold when it comes to this since it's Rotom Dex writing them and it's a snarky little geist. While not a pun, my favorite entries are for the Pokemon who gain extra heads upon evolving, Rotom Dex usually mentions they don't get any smarter. Really wished Rotom was in the Alola Dex, curious what it would have to say about its species and the other forms.

Pokémon's stuck with this problem due to the unique peculiarities of what it is. You need something that forces players to consider what they use and think about diversity and make compromise... but without harming the "use anything you want" thing.
Hmm, in Let's Go you don't need the Starter Pikachu or Eevee in your party in order to use their Secret Techniques. Maybe they can do the same in the core series, give you the Ride Pager but instead of renting someone else's Pokemon you can assign certain Pokemon HMs moves you can call upon them direct from the box to help. That way you can have any Pokemon you want in your party, have a way to clear HM obstacles, and make it feel like you're bonding with your Pokemon. And you'll still also have the option to use the HM if one of your Pokemon knows it in your party.

Just to give some more of my thoughts on HMs in general:
1. I like how BW kept most HM obstacles as side things. I can actually see a system that uses that idea where the start if the game feels pretty linear (though you can still access all the important areas) but as you get more HMs you can explore deeper and slowly expand the region.
2. Indeed there's no real puzzles when it comes to using HMs, but I can see the potential for puzzles using them.
3. Since HMs are considered sort of separate from TMs, I think a neat idea they could have done was making the HM more powerful/useful the more Badges you get. Like you can get the HMs in any order you want (though you may not be able to use it outside of battle without a certain number of Badges), but they all are weak at the start but their strength grows with you as you get more Badges.
 
3. Since HMs are considered sort of separate from TMs, I think a neat idea they could have done was making the HM more powerful/useful the more Badges you get. Like you can get the HMs in any order you want (though you may not be able to use it outside of battle without a certain number of Badges), but they all are weak at the start but their strength grows with you as you get more Badges.
Or they could use actually useful moves as HM.
Waterfall, Fly and Surf were clear examples of moves that doubled as HM and strong incombat moves.
Cut for example could be replaced with something like X-scissor or other cutting moves, Flash could be a electric attack, Strenght could be something like Bulk Up or a buffing move, you get what I mean.

If HMs weren't moves that essentially act as moveslot reductions (on top of the issue that they weren't replaceable aside from using the move deleter, which was the other big annoyance) people would have had much less issues with them.
 
Hmm, in Let's Go you don't need the Starter Pikachu or Eevee in your party in order to use their Secret Techniques. Maybe they can do the same in the core series, give you the Ride Pager but instead of renting someone else's Pokemon you can assign certain Pokemon HMs moves you can call upon them direct from the box to help. That way you can have any Pokemon you want in your party, have a way to clear HM obstacles, and make it feel like you're bonding with your Pokemon. And you'll still also have the option to use the HM if one of your Pokemon knows it in your party.

Just to give some more of my thoughts on HMs in general:
1. I like how BW kept most HM obstacles as side things. I can actually see a system that uses that idea where the start if the game feels pretty linear (though you can still access all the important areas) but as you get more HMs you can explore deeper and slowly expand the region.
2. Indeed there's no real puzzles when it comes to using HMs, but I can see the potential for puzzles using them.
3. Since HMs are considered sort of separate from TMs, I think a neat idea they could have done was making the HM more powerful/useful the more Badges you get. Like you can get the HMs in any order you want (though you may not be able to use it outside of battle without a certain number of Badges), but they all are weak at the start but their strength grows with you as you get more Badges.
Perhaps I should recontextualise: the problem isn't necessarily that there must be an obstacle you have to use a tool on-hand on, or that we must preserve HMs specifically. The problem is that there should be tasks you need specific Pokémon for, but that goes against the series' essential message of 'use what you want'. The example of LGPE isn't quite a solution to this because you still have the tool on-hand at every turn -- functionally, it's no different from the ride pager.

As an example to illustrate this, let's say in a future game there's a certain area where only specific Pokémon are able to enter -- and that functionally ends up meaning about 60-75% of the regional dex, or something. This may force the player to look for those Pokémon to be able to do that area and hence forces them to think about team diversity and open them up to more options than they had initially considered, but unfortunately runs into the problem of meaning they can't quite bring in what they want. Maybe there's someone that had considered that diversity and all these strengths and weaknesses the game wants to tell you about, but it so happens that the Pokémon on their team that fit that criteria are part of the 25-40% of Pokémon not allowed in this particular area. This may ring a bell -- it's a similar frustrating situation for us veteran players who know all the ins and outs of Pokémon and when replaying games just want to use whatever they want, but are then forced to forego one or two of their teammembers for a Bibarel or something we otherwise won't care about to overcome one or two specific obstacles.

It's certainly not something that's absolutely the worst thing ever, and the nice thing about HMs is that you only occasionally need them and it never really effects more than a third of your team. And if you're playing with 4 or 5 Pokémon, it likely won't effect you at all! It is still an issue though, and one worth considering about even if I myself can't come up with a great alternative. Something that would challenge only new players specifically that the veteran doesn't need to care about may be apt, though those are always difficult to implement especially in a game where the skill comes from strategy rather than button inputs.
 
Or they could use actually useful moves as HM.
Waterfall, Fly and Surf were clear examples of moves that doubled as HM and strong incombat moves.
Cut for example could be replaced with something like X-scissor or other cutting moves, Flash could be a electric attack, Strenght could be something like Bulk Up or a buffing move, you get what I mean.

If HMs weren't moves that essentially act as moveslot reductions (on top of the issue that they weren't replaceable aside from using the move deleter, which was the other big annoyance) people would have had much less issues with them.
Dunno about that. I of course would rather have them be useful than not, but it still doesn't fix the issue. Sure, something like Fly is useable ingame, but what if I'd rather use Drill Peck instead? What if I prefer Scald over Surf? It's not optimal, even if it's better than being stuck with something like Cut.
 

Pikachu315111

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Or they could use actually useful moves as HM.
Waterfall, Fly and Surf were clear examples of moves that doubled as HM and strong incombat moves.
Cut for example could be replaced with something like X-scissor or other cutting moves, Flash could be a electric attack, Strenght could be something like Bulk Up or a buffing move, you get what I mean.

If HMs weren't moves that essentially act as moveslot reductions (on top of the issue that they weren't replaceable aside from using the move deleter, which was the other big annoyance) people would have had much less issues with them.
Oh, I wouldn't go back on what I said about forcing you to have a Pokemon in your party use them, I was just saying if they're going to have HMs it would be neat, if you decide to teach them to your Pokemon, if their power increases as you get more Badges. Because we have weak HMs like Cut then strong HMs like Surf, which means they have to give you Cut early and Surf at least midpoint. But what if they made the HMs all weak from the beginning (though still useful for early game) and then as you get the Badges they keep up with you.

Also, I wouldn't mind if they gave HM items a try. Make it feel like we're expanding our capabilities and not always relying on our Pokemon.
 
I'm surprised this has not been discussed before, but the details about Gen 5 games:
blackwhite_logo.png

See letters match the words, but the outline is different? It references how Reshiram and Zekrom are the colors of the opposite games. Now look at Black 2 and White 2:

pokemon-black-2.jpg

Now the colors of the outline and border match entirely, since the Kyurem forms match the color. Its a nice little detail they didn't have to do but they did, I'm surprised they don't get much attention.
 
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Porygon's laggy "walking" animation in Let's Go is genuinely hilarious. I first saw it on a Youtube video and genuinely though my internet was struggling for a couple of seconds, before I got the joke...
 

Pikachu315111

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It's easy to forget that, in order to do the music for those few minute Pokemon GO videos, they need to hire an entire orchestra:
For those wondering, the music is done by Air Studios who does a lot of music and sound effects of films, TV, ads, and of course, video games. While it's funny to think all these people came in to play a few minutes for a Pokemon GO commercial, in real life this was probably one of a dozen or so musical scores they did that day (likely one of the quickest, but with the Pokemon Company there doing some behind-the-scenes filming probably brought in some excitement for the musicians). :)
 

Sondero

Don't you dare say you'd rather lose!
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The brief cutscene in the Gen VII games where you can see Mimikyu sneaking towards the trial site. Subtle easter eggs are my favorite things, and GF seems to incorporate them pretty well, this being a prime example of that. Would love to see some of these in the new core game.

View attachment 148922
I agree, those small details are very nice to have. Gives me the impression that the designers are having fun while making the game. I think it would've been better if they didn't make the cutscene pause for a couple of extra seconds longer than they needed to, but that's just a small nit-pick.
 

Pikachu315111

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While not a Pokemon game, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is doing its service to the Pokemon series. Starting off, a batch of awesome remixes! Looks to be based on ORAS and Gen VII stuff:

Battle! Hoenn Champion
Battle! Lorekeeper Zinnia
Battle! Alola Wild Pokemon & Pokemon Title Theme
Battle! Alola Trainer
Battle! Island Kahuna
Battle! Gladion
Battle! Alola Elite Four & Solgaleo/Lunala/Necrozma
The Battle at the Summit (Sun & Moon Champion)

All great themes, especially happy to see Steven's, Zinnia's, & Gladion's getting a remix. I can only imagine how tough it was for the staff to slim it down to just these eight themes (or rather 10 since two have two themes combined). While a lot of these seem obvious, ORAS also has the themes for Rivals (other player character & Wally), Gym Leaders, Team Magma & Aqua (grunt & bosses), Groudon/Kyogre/Rayquaza, the Elite Four, & Deoxys. Gen VII skips Hau, Team Skull (grunt, Plumeria, & Guzma), Aether Foundation Employee, Lusamine, Island Guardians, Ultra Beasts, Blue's Remix for Battle Tree Boss, Ultra Recon Squad, Fused & Ultra Necrozma, and Rainbow Rocket (grunt & Giovanni). Surprised there aren't more medleys just to try and cover as many themes as possible.
 

Its_A_Random

A distant memory
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For how basic the games were compared to later gens with regards to things like QoL, I like how Gen I (RBY) handled level ups. To show what I mean:

Gen I
Pokémon gained 100,000 experience points!
Pokémon grew to Level 50!
<Stats>
Pokémon learned Move!
Pokémon learned Move!
Pokémon is trying to learn Move!
etc.

Gen II and beyond:
Pokémon gained 100,000 experience points!
<Bar fills>
Pokémon grew to Level 2!
<Stats added, then Stats>
<Bar fills>
Pokémon grew to Level 3!
<Stats added, then Stats>
Pokémon learned Move!
...
<Bar fills>
Pokémon grew to Level 50!
<Stats added, then Stats>
Pokémon is trying to learn Move!

Basically what I like is how efficient RBY handled level ups, just cutting to the chase to tell me what level my Pokémon grew to, what its stats are, and what moves it got/trying to learn as opposed to handling it level by level and making you just sit there and mash the A Button for several minutes and telling me which moves it wants to learn as it goes. A really neat QoL that doesn't waste your time. While the experience bar is a nice visual indicator (which is defeated by the fact that you can just experience check in the Pokémon Menu), the fact that you need to watch the bar go up again and again and again (particularly if you gain a bunch of experience) makes it overall inefficient.
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
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So, Official Pokemon Channel uploaded three interesting videos.

First an odd one: how to paint your fingernails like the Eeveelutions!

(Bet you never expected this to be on the official Pokemon Youtube Channel!)

Obviously this one is more geared toward the girls (who have long fingernails), though it's neat to see how these little pictures are done. Cheating a bit to have Eevee on both thumbs, they could have maybe painted the symbol of the Eevium Z.

Next two are videos of Junichi Masuda and Kensaku Nabana (a field designer and modeler). First is a "Who's That Pokemon" using the menu sprite pixel art from Let's Go:

(Oh Masuda, I just can't stay mad at you for long :))
Getting Eevee Wrong: Now I'll admit I also got this one wrong... though at least I guessed Flareon (and hadn't spent the last few months of my lift making the game). I sort of got where they got Weepinbell but it's too much of an awkward angle.
Ball Pokemon: Surprised they didn't split the first ball Pokemon so at least one of them would be right. :P Then on the second one they were considering it was a trick and it was actually a Poke Ball. Though total missed opportunity to say "Jigglypuff seen from above" (and yes, practically half of the comment section is this joke, but would have liked to hear them say it :P).
Only Three Heads/Getting Eevee Correct: Gotta give the editor props on this video. I love the segment where they showed every three headed Pokemon to Nabana's "only one three headed Pokemon" comment and ending the video making them getting "Eevee" correct. XD


Second has Nabana putting on a Mii head of Masuda and testing to see if he knows what Masuda's likes are. Not only is this a funny little video but we also get to learn a bit about Masuda:

Brock or Misty: Masuda loves Psyduck so the win goes to Misty.
Jessie or James: Jessie is Masuda's waifu.
Masuda's GO Team (Mystic, Instinct, or Valor): How did I know Masuda was going to be an Instincts man...
Masuda's Favorite Pokemon... In English: LOL, well at least Nabana knew it as shown in the first question.


EDIT: And there's another! A Pokemon drawing contest:

Psyduck: Starts out alright, Nabana doing the full body while Masuda only doing the head. Round 1 goes to Nabana.
Meltan: Pfft, easy to make the head nut 3D, but both forgot the tail. No winner!
Jigglypuff Seen From Above: Oh, so they were just saving the joke, lol! Well Nabana might not have realized what that was a reference too as he ACTUALLY drew what a Jigglypuff from above looks like, lol! Masuda forgot the ears but did include the microphone, so I declare Masuda the winner of round 3.
Alolan Exeggutor: I knew they were both going to do that. Because of that, no one gets a point! Would have been funny if one did the top while the other did the bottom, or if they both thought of that so ended up doing the top.
Tangela: I'm just gonna say no one gets a point here either.
Gyarados: Eh, I'll give it to Nabana since his chibi Gyarados is kind of cute. And Maile Garden's lake looks more like a silhouette of Gyarados than Masuda's drawing, lol!

And what a surprise, the winner is the guy who creates Pokemon for a living. I also like Masuda's reaction to Nabana mentioning he's been drawing Pokemon since he was elementary school, you can just tell he's thinking "very funny, wise guy".
 
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It doesn't work like that from my memory. If Bulbasaur skips from 12 to 14 l, it doesn't learn Vine Whip (learned at lv 13)
Late reply, but I also remember that it was this way in Gen 1. I recall that I once trained a Pokemon in Gen 1 and made it grow from level 2 to 20 or something in just one battle. While it skipped all the levels along the way, it also skipped all the moves it would have learned. So it was a bit flawed.

However, I think this concept would be quite cool if they could get it to work properly. If a future game would make it so that when a Pokemon was about to grow multiple levels, it would automatically skip to the last level it would get to and then learn all the moves it would have learned along the way. The current system is good but not quite perfect. When playing some of the modern games with epic training spots such as the Gen 5-6 games (most notably OR/AS), it can be annoying when you do a lot of leveling at once. I always train a lot of Pokemon in my games and having to see every single level up when many Pokemon grows from level 1 to level 50 takes a lot of time. It would be great if future games could make it skip to the final level immediately like in Gen 1 while still allowing the Pokemon to learn all the moves it would have learned along the way. Basically, the best of both Gen 1 and Gen 2-7.

While we're at it, I have come up with several more things that I like, so let's continue with them.

First, more on the topic of Exp. and leveling up. This whole thing reminded me of one very simple thing I like. The amount of Exp. you need to the next level being visible in battle, in the form of the Exp. progress bar. An amazing feature ever since it was introduced in Gen 2. Which means it is also another thing I like from my least favorite generation! Anyway, I think this feature is really great because it means you can always see approximately how much Exp. you need to the next level without having to go into the summary screen, like you had to do in Gen 1. Small things can make a big difference, and while we take it for granted these days, it didn't even exist when the series first started.

This also reminds me of another similar thing I like. The progress bar while saving in Gen 5. For games with long saving times, it is great to have a progress bar while the game is saving so you can see how much longer you have to wait before it is done. I missed that in Gen 3-4. It's not really needed in Gen 6-7 though since they have extremely fast saving times similar to Gen 1-2. But if any future games should have longer saving times, I hope it returns.

I like how OR/AS has a specialist trainer for every type. The Gym Leaders have 8 types, the Elite Four and Champion have 5 more types, and the five trainers in the Battle Resort have the 5 final types. Why do I like this? Because I usually have a hard time remembering all 18 types. Whenever I try to think about all 18 types without some kind of reference, I always forget one or two types. But thanks to OR/AS having all types represented in the games, I can just think about them and their specialist trainers in order to remember all 18 types.

A common complaint about Pokemon games is that they are linear, and that is very true (although I don't really mind because I like linearity in video games, but that's not the point here). However, one thing the games does very well is that even if they are linear, there are extremely few areas in them that you can never go back to. For almost all areas in the games, you have the ability to go back to them later on. That is something the games do very well even if they are linear, compared to other games that are linear and have more and larger areas which you can't go back to after certain points, that is something I don't like. But Pokemon doesn't do this in any larger degree and that I like that.

I like how the names of berries in the Pokemon world are based on real-life berries and fruits. It took me forever to realize this as I used to think that the berries just had random names made up for fun. Then I realized the truth and I was very happy when I found out about it since it shows that they put some thought into even small details such as berry names.

Guess what I like more? Pokemon Adventures. This manga is so much fun and as of this year, I am have finally gotten up to date on all of it. So here's some more things I like about it, decided to put all of it in a spoiler because of length and in order to not spoil things for those who have yet to read the manga but wants to.
To start with, I like that the manga made me remember some things I had forgotten from the older games when I read some of the older chapters. Some examples are Juan and Scott in the R/S and Emerald chapters (since they don't appear in OR/AS), Deoxys in the FR/LG chapter (though that's mainly because I never got a Deoxys of my own in Gen 3) and Crystal in the G/S/C chapter (since she wasn't in HG/SS - the games, they had Lyra instead).

I said once before that the starters for the Sinnoh protagonists matches my own starter choices for my Sinnoh games. After thinking about this for a little more, I realized that the same goes for the Johto starters I picked in my Johto games. When I played through my Johto games for the first time, I picked Totodile in Silver, Chikorita in Crystal and Cyndaquil in Gold. In the manga, Silver stole Totodile, Gold took Cyndaquil and Chikorita chose Crystal, which matches my choices for the games. The same goes for the remakes as I picked Totodile in SoulSilver and Cyndaquil in HeartGold. This doesn't happen to such a large extent for any other regions, (the closest would be Hoenn) but it's cool that it happened for two out of seven.

Next up, something that's a bit harder to explain, but I'll try my best. I like how the manga sometimes manages to catch situations in the Pokemon fandom. For example: In the D/P chapter, there are a few rather vague references to Johto. I remember that during the D/P days, the fandom had a huge demand for Johto remakes for a very long time, all the way until the point that they were eventually announced. I have some fond memories from the fandom and all the hype/speculation during that period, and that kind of came back to me as I read the D/P chapter, so that was really cool.

Something that's not unique to Pokemon Adventures since it happens with other manga as well, but I'll say it here anyway. I like how some volumes form a larger picture when placed next to each other. These are volumes 21/22, volume 10/11 of D/P/P (39/40 in Japan) as well as volume 8/9 of B/W (50/51 in Japan). I really like that. I also hope that whenever Viz releases a B/W box set, they'll choose the combined image of volume 8/9 for the poster.

I like how the manga has its own story and stays true to itself no matter what the games decide to do in terms of story and continuity (or sometimes, the lack thereof). Some examples are Blaine returning in the X/Y chapter because of his connection to Mewtwo which had been established in previous chapters. Or Giovanni appearing in the OR/AS chapter because he had a connection to Deoxys since the FR/LG chapter.

In addition to that, I think that there are some things that the manga handles and explains better than the games in terms of story, characters and continuity. For instance, as partly mentioned above, why Mewtwo returned in X/Y. The games give no explanation whatsoever, while the manga explains it and makes sense out of it. Another example is why the legendary beasts are roaming. The Johto games doesn't really give an explanation for this, but the manga gives a reason.

Lastly, a minor thing I like. In the R/B chapter, there are robot Pidgey at the Safari Zone. In the Platinum chapter, there's a robot Starly at the Battle Frontier. In the HG/SS chapter, there's a robot Hoothoot at the Safari Zone. And in the S/M chapter, Sina has a robot Fletchling. That's very minor but I like these mechanical birds a lot.
And that's all for now. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!
 
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Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
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I like how OR/AS has a specialist trainer for every type. The Gym Leaders have 8 types, the Elite Four and Champion have 5 more types, and the five trainers in the Battle Resort have the 5 final types. Why do I like this? Because I usually have a hard time remembering all 18 types. Whenever I try to think about all 18 types without some kind of reference, I always forget one or two types. But thanks to OR/AS having all types represented in the games, I can just think about them and their specialist trainers in order to remember all 18 types.
I would more try to compliment Gen VII (trying) to do that more than ORAS. While ORAS certainly has a specialist for every Type, five of them are just generic trainers you only meet post game.

Gen VII have a Type specialist for every Type except Ice for some reason. But all the Type specialists are unique characters with unique model and personality.

I like how the names of berries in the Pokemon world are based on real-life berries and fruits. It took me forever to realize this as I used to think that the berries just had random names made up for fun. Then I realized the truth and I was very happy when I found out about it since it shows that they put some thought into even small details such as berry names.
Not just berry and fruits, but also vegetables, nuts, and other edible plants. And they don't go with the well known stuff either, a lot of them are plants you may have never heard of. Another fun thing about the Berries is that (most) of their names are derived from the plant they're based on, it's fun to see how they altered it to come up with the Berry's name.
 

Pikachu315111

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Isn't Sina the ice type specialist ? No because they f***ed up ! They could have given more role (she's always behind Dexio) ...
Indeed, she does specialize in Ice-types and does use Icium Z, however the issue is that she's partnered with Dexio. Dexio is a Psychic-type specialist, which Faba also is. Had Faba not been a Psychic-type specialist I would be more willing to agree both are their preferred type's specialist, but Faba is and being more prominent in the story would make Sina feel like the odd one out.

I was kind of hoping in USUM they would make Lillie the Ice-type Specialist, giving her an Alolan Vulpix as a reference to the anime (they even had this on-going mini-quest involving a wild Alolan Vulpix, I was sure it would end up with Lillie by the end). But, no, instead she's given a Clefairy (which I get, Clefable is implied to be her mother's favorite/ace).
 

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