Little things you like about Pokémon

Pikachu315111

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So I'm filling out the Curry Dex cause it's something to do in the post game and, while I've yet to fully grasp what I need to do (I sometimes get Silver but usually end up with Bronze, no clue what the game wants me to do other then connect to other players... but that's not required to complete the Curry Dex), I've come to like two things about the Curry mechanic:

1. The appearance. Ever heard the term "food porn"? It's a term used to describe when an artist draws a picture of food so good it makes you hungry and want to eat it. And I think the artists assigned to draw the curry got the "food porn" down good. And that's something to say because, while they have normal easy to draw dishes like so:

(Sausage, Juicy, Bean Medly, & Plenty-of-Potato)

The dishes that I think really shines are a bit of the outlandish ones. While for some of these they could have just had chopped up the ingredient and mixed it into the curry they did with the above, instead they tried to take different approaches:

With the Bread, Smoked-Tail, and Leek they just slapped the main ingredient on top of the curry. And while a bit funny how brazen that is, it does also give the artist a chance to actually show the the seasoning on the bread, the roasted scales on the Slowpoke's tail, and got the cooked leek to that brown color which shows its cooked but still looks flavorful.

When it comes to the Apple, Boiled-Egg, and Tropical it's interesting how they combined the strange ingredient with the curry. For the apple and tropical (aka banana) it's actually the medium dishes that I feel shows this off better as the large dishes is mostly just a whole apple and banana on top of the curry. BTW, another kudos to the art team for actually creating three different images for each curry, you could even say the small amount (which is only big enough to fit on a single spoon) are impressive all on their own for how they simplified the curry's unique appearance down to a spoonful size. But back to the curry being discussed, once again instead of mixing the odd fruit combinations with the curry they do a middle ground of cutting them up but leaving them separate and even decorating the dish with them. Meanwhile the egg is just funny how it's more the main dish and they just piled curry above and around it, lol.



For Cheese-Covered, Whipped-Cream, and Decorative I like how they progressed the design from the small spoonful to the large stacked plate, especially with the Decorative. With the small spoonfuls it's just a dab of cheese & whipped cream; the decorative it's a tiny Eevee and Pikachu face. Going to the medium serving the cheese looks like it's a slice of cheese cake, whipped cream got fancy with the presentation, and for decorative it's a more detailed Eevee and Pikachu in the curry. Finally the large full plates go all out: the cheese gives you an entire cheese cake with a slice missing (probably the slice used for the medium serving), the whipped cream make the curry into a cake topped with a Alcremie decor, and decorative makes two mounds with the top molded to look like Eevee and Pikachu. With these three you can tell the artist was having fun seeing what crazy design they could do.

If there was one curry I'd have to call out for being lazy it would be the Instant-Noodle. Like the medium serving is fine as it's a nicely drawn cup of instant noodles with curry poured into it... but then we get the large serving and it's just the medium serving cup copy & pasted size times. Yes, the blobs of curry are slightly different for each cup and you can see the spices and noodles are also mixed around, but 80% of the image is the copy & pasted cup. Surely they could have been more creative like having the large serving is a mound of curry with a cup flipped upside down with the noodles pouring out from under it. Also where did you get the other 5 noodle cups?


2. The descriptions. Now they could have just copy & pasted the flavor text for each curry, and they sort of did that with the normal curry. However to my shock all the other unique curries have a unique description for each flavor! And with the curry not changing appearance no matter what flavor you make, this little detail in my book makes up for that. And also not all the descriptions are positive, while plenty are and somehow are able to say the curry tastes good no matter the flavor, read the descriptions for the Fast-Food, Whipped-Cream, Decorative, and Instant-Noodle descriptions. For the Fast-Food and Instant-Noodle they lambaste them, pointing out how the fast-food's oil ruins any flavor combination and the instant-noodles become only a step above junk food with additional flavors. Whipped-Cream gets off a bit better though the Sweet once pretty much says what the others are dancing around: you've made the curry into a sweet dessert. And Decorative is strongly implied to be style over substance and the only likable one is the Sweet one and only by younger kids (which is surprising the one that's based on Pikachu and Eevee is heavily criticized like that). They really put thought into how the different flavors would interact with the main ingredient and effect the taste of the curry thus letting the player able to imagine what it tastes like instead of having to assume from the image. Great job to the description writing team!
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
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Lance's teams are consistently hilarious. He fights with three Dragonites when he's the champion, and he always puts Hyper Beam on literally every single one of his Pokemon, with the exceptions of HGSS (where he only puts it on most of his Pokemon), B2W2, and Stadium.

Lance is casual Pokemon at its peak.
Well that what happens when you make a Type specialist for a Type that only has one family in that Type. His original RB team wasn't any better having two Dragonairs and a Dragonite. That said starting from Yellow they did try to do something more unique with them:

In RB his Dragonairs had the same movepool, but in Yellow one was given Thunderbolt & Thunder Wave while the other BubbleBeam & Ice Beam, thus both played slightly different roles. Dragonite was also changed to having Blizzard/Fire Blast/Thunder making it much more of a threat or at least give it better coverage where in RB its only attacking moves were Normal-type.

This carries over to GSC where he's the Champion and now has three Dragonites. Each Dragonite has one of the inaccurate power trio, the two weaker ones were given Twister & Thunder Wave (probably hoping to hax you with them; afterall all his Dragonites aren't at the level they evolve at) while his strongest was given Safe Guard & Outrage.

Now with more moves available FRLG didn't do what Yellow did but did somewhat specialize each Dragonair. Both can set up Safeguard now but one has Thunder Wave while the other Dragon Rage, guessing the idea one Paralyzes you while the other can chip away at Steel-types? Dragonite is no longer an elemental master, instead just focusing on all out offense plus Safeguard. However the Rematch replaces one of his Dragonairs with a Kingdra and evolves one to a Dragonite and both Dragonites were given wider elemental range, weaker one with Earthquake & Flamethrower and stronger one with Ice Beam & Thunderbolt.

HGSS pretty much uses his GSC team except replaces the puny Twister with the more dangerous Dragon Rush. However, going back to what you said with Hyper Beam, he still uses it on Dragonite even though now Giga Impact (thanks to the Category Split) is much better for it. I guess it's funny in a way that Lance is so remembered for Dragonite & Hyper Beam that GF refused to change this. Even in rematches where he replaces his other two Dragonites and Aerodactyl for a Salamence, Garchomp, and Altaria.

Though the record was broken in B2W2's Pokemon World Tournament. Not only does he only use one Dragonite for each battle he's in but it doesn't have Hyper Beam but instead Extreme Speed. He also has an all Dragon-type team.

Though LGPE fixes that by, while still having one Dragonite it now has Hyper Beam as one of its THREE moves and he replaced the other two Dragonairs with a Seadra (a nice little nod to Seadra and maybe also Clair) and Charizard. In the rematch he does Mega Evolve Charizard in MCX and also gets an Alolan Exeggutor.

FUN FACT: Stadium 1 never had Lance using a Dragonite, only a Dragonair and only for Round 1 against him. Stadium 2 fixes that by having each of his teams have a Hyper Beaming Dragonite on it.


Lance isn't the only one with this problem. Obviously his cousin Clair too had this problem, in GSC originally using three Dragonairs (sorta using the same elemental trio strategy as Lance but replaced Fire with Water). HGSS replaced one Dragonair with a Gyarados (that knew no Water or Flying-type moves); her rematch team is vaguely a copy of Lances original Champion team except one Dragonite is her signature Kingdra and the other is a Dragonair (they could have at least given it an Eviolite). EDIT: My mistake, Eviolite wasn't introduced until Gen 5.

Early Ghost-type users also shared their problems with Dragon-type users, though they did try to make each of her Gengar/Haunter unique even if some decisions didn't make sense.

In RG her two Gengars are similar except the weaker has Hypnosis which works with Dream Eater while her stronger has Toxic... which doesn't work with Dream Eater. I guess her Haunter having Hypnosis is maybe supposed to help the other Gengar?

Yellow was better. Weaker Gengar has completely different moves which looks like it's supposed to annoy & wear you down. Stronger Gengar uses the previous moveset of the weaker Gengar but swaps Night Shade with Psychic. Haunter has Lick instead I guess because it's goal is more to Paralyze before getting knocked out.

FRLG has weaker Gengar also on the role of just being annoying and wearing you down. Haunter has Mean Look and Curse, so there's its job. Stronger Gengar is all out offense, but instead of having Dream Eater is now sets up Nightmare. Rematch finally replaces the Haunter with a Misdreavus and both Gengar are now full on offense though the stronger one has a lot more coverage with the weaker still using Hypnosis and Confuse Ray.

LGPE surprisingly keeps her using two Gengars, weaker one using Will-O-Wisp while the stronger was given Dazzling Gleam... oh, and both also have THREE moves (seriously GF, why?). They at least replaced the Haunter with a Weezing which I guess fits Agatha, though I would have given her say a Marowak since her team is supposed to be creepy not Poison-type. Speaking of which, her rematch team gives her an Alolan Marowak though doesn't change much else except giving both Gengars Sucker Punch.

Shame Elite Four wasn't invited to the Pokemon World Tournament, she could have had an actual all Ghost-type team.


Then we got Morty, poor Morty. Even though they introduced Misdreavus in Gen II they still only gave him the entire Gastly family line including two Haunters. Here's the job of each of his Pokemon in GSC: Gastly Mean Look+Curse+Spite, weaker Haunter Hypnosis+Curse, stronger Haunter Mean Look+Spite (which kind of makes it the weaker one in my opinion...), and Gengar actually tries to fight. HGSS keeps Gastly the same weaker Haunter also has Dream Eater & Nightmare, stronger Haunter changes to Mean Look+Curse, and Gengar gave up Dream Eater to have Sucker Punch. HGSS Rematch gives him a wide range of Ghost-types, though they still give him two Gengars which have different moves but at the same time don't quite know if they were going any strategy. B2W2's PWT keeps his team to one Gengar. FUN FACT: The ONLY time Morty has a Poison-type move on his Gengar was one of his PWT teams.

But from Gen III on they mostly gave them diverse teams. Drake had to make some compromises but still had 3 Dragon family lines & kept them varied. Volkner and Flint were strange cases but they didn't repeat Pokemon and it was only in DP as Platinum made some smart Dex extensions (or rather extensions that probably should have been a part of the Sinnoh dex in the first place).
 
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Vinc2612

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Lance isn't the only one with this problem. Obviously his cousin Clair too had this problem, in GSC originally using three Dragonairs (sorta using the same elemental trio strategy as Lance but replaced Fire with Water). HGSS replaced one Dragonair with a Gyarados (that knew no Water or Flying-type moves); her rematch team is vaguely a copy of Lances original Champion team except one Dragonite is her signature Kingdra and the other is a Dragonair (they could have at least given it an Eviolite).
Eviolite was added in gen 5, it didn't exist in HGSS.
 

Yung Dramps

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From what I'm hearing, Chairman Rose is receiving mixed to poor reception, with criticisms ranging from nonsensical motivation to poor set-up for the revelation of his plan. I'll judge stuff like that when I get the game, but for now I'd like to compliment his team for doing something that to my knowledge hasn't been really done since Ghetsis: Indirect storytelling via Pokemon selection.

For one thing, going back to Ghetsis, a lot of people have pointed out that his BW1 team seems explicitly designed to counter N's, possibly in case he ever tried to resist or rebel against him: Seismitoad and Hydreigon checking the mascot legends, Bisharp countering Vanilluxe and Archeops, so on and so forth. Chairman Rose's team does something similar. A large part of his role involves him manipulating Bede to defend him as the game goes on, a rival who specializes in Psychic types and later Fairy types when he takes over Opal's gym. And what type does Rose specialize in? Steel, which fucks over both of the types Bede uses.

Steel also has good match-ups VS Dragon and Poison, and what would you know Eternatus is both of those types, possibly showing Rose was prepared to take the beast out should it go on a rampage. Except when the player battles and captures Eternatus it is discovered that it knows Flamethrower, the only non-Fire type other than the Salamence line to learn that move by level-up. In other words, just like he does in the actual plot, Rose's team underestimates what Eternatus can do and if it actually fought the monster would get melted by that one bit of coverage (his Ferrothorn and Escavalier are even 4x weak to it).
 

Pikachu315111

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From what I'm hearing, Chairman Rose is receiving mixed to poor reception, with criticisms ranging from nonsensical motivation to poor set-up for the revelation of his plan. I'll judge stuff like that when I get the game, but for now I'd like to compliment his team for doing something that to my knowledge hasn't been really done since Ghetsis: Indirect storytelling via Pokemon selection.

For one thing, going back to Ghetsis, a lot of people have pointed out that his BW1 team seems explicitly designed to counter N's, possibly in case he ever tried to resist or rebel against him: Seismitoad and Hydreigon checking the mascot legends, Bisharp countering Vanilluxe and Archeops, so on and so forth. Chairman Rose's team does something similar. A large part of his role involves him manipulating Bede to defend him as the game goes on, a rival who specializes in Psychic types and later Fairy types when he takes over Opal's gym. And what type does Rose specialize in? Steel, which fucks over both of the types Bede uses.

Steel also has good match-ups VS Dragon and Poison, and what would you know Eternatus is both of those types, possibly showing Rose was prepared to take the beast out should it go on a rampage. Except when the player battles and captures Eternatus it is discovered that it knows Flamethrower, the only non-Fire type other than the Salamence line to learn that move by level-up. In other words, just like he does in the actual plot, Rose's team underestimates what Eternatus can do and if it actually fought the monster would get melted by that one bit of coverage (his Ferrothorn and Escavalier are even 4x weak to it).
Small bit on top of that, you could maybe make an argument that Oleana's team was made to compliment's Rose's team, or rather a Steel-type team:

Steel is weak to Fighting: Froslass is immune to Fighting; Salazzle & Garbodor resist Fighting; Tsareena has Acrobatics; Froslass also has Will-O-Wisp and Fighting-types usually lean toward the physically side.
Steel is weak to Fire: Milotic's STAB is strong against Fire; Salazzle resist Fire; Garbodor has Stomping Tantrum & Rock Blast.
Steel is weak to Ground: Milotic's, Tsareen's, & Froslass's STAB is strong against Ground.
Steel resisted by Electric: Tsareen resists Electric; Garbodor has Stomping Tantrum.
Steel resisted by Steel: Salazzle's STAB is strong against Steel (and can Poison Steel-types); Milotic resists Steel; Garbodor has Stomping Tantrum.
Steel resisted by Water: Tsareen's STAB is strong against; Milotic also resists Water.

And with the majority of Macro Cosmos staff members using Steel-types as well it's easy to see why Oleana is their boss as she can both provide valuable assistance to them but also defeat them. The Pokemon chosen for her team may reflect her personality (a beautiful woman with a hidden nasty side) and backstory (she grew up poor with her only friend being a Trubbish, then Rose uplifted her and now she covers herself in beauty but still remembers and stays loyal to her roots), but they also made sure it was functional both for a tough fight and how she would make a team that would be complimentary to Rose.
 

Yung Dramps

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On the subject of important trainer teams, I'd like to draw attention to Kabu.

According to one of his League Card bios, he's actually from Hoenn. Between his original and rematch teams, he uses Ninetales and Torkoal, the two Fire types in Sword and Shield that were also in the RSE dex.

Now considering there aren't a metric shitton of Fire types in the region aside from the ones he already uses this could totally be a coincidence, but intentional or not it's still a neat detail.
 

Pikachu315111

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How do we not have more stuff like this?
This cutscene SCREAMED for having some kind of song yet for a few seconds nothing but silence. Well, if you remember back when Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was about to be released they had a beautifully animated TV commercial of all the (initial) fighters duking it out on a massive battlefield... with no music, just sound effects. Well, the internet was quick to fill in the void (personal fave is Don't Stop Me Now), and it made me curious if maybe someone did the same for the Piers cutscene. And someone did! Looks like Nintendo Enthusiast is going over Pokemon Sword & Shield cutscenes and adding their own dub over it... and as well as adding their own bit of abridged series-esque dialogue. For some of them it works, for others it's a bit cringy. But hey, I still give them credit for doing it at least, and I do like their take on the Opal Endorses Bede scene.
 

Yung Dramps

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I'm gonna take this section to give props to ORAS for being just about the only set of remakes in this franchise that actually took advantage of the new forms given to its Pokemon over the years.

FRLG? Literally prevented you from evolving your Pokemon into any forms that came after Gen 1 until beating the Pokemon League. HGSS? Restricted cross-gen evolution methods for Pokemon like Togekiss and Leafeon/Glaceon until Kanto, and major trainers didn't use these forms either (even in the Pokemon League rematches, Silver doesn't evolve his Sneasel or Magneton, for instance). Let's Go? Only the OG 151 + Alolan forms and Melmetal which weren't obtainable until postgame.

Now, ORAS on the other hand? Despite not even really having that many extra evolutions for the RSE dex and not being the origin of any of them, they made sure to incorporate a lot of them into trainer teams like Phoebe using Dusknoir, Glacia using Froslass and most famously Wally using Gallade. On top of this, they also include new and pre-existing Mega Evolutions from XY, giving those to major trainers like Archie/Maxie Mega Camerupt/Sharpedo and Steven getting Mega Metagross. It's so small and can't even really be fully accredited to ORAS, but it makes the experience feel just that bit more fresh.
 
I remember I was listening to somebody complain about how they should've changed the teams for ORAS, and during their complaining they mentioned that Glacia had two Froslass not realizing that those were new adds lol

ORAS actually mixing in the evolutions was great, and one of the best decisions it made considering how much other remakes flubbed it. A big part of the reason I didn't end up buying Let's Go was that they gutted all the great evolutions like Crobat that really rounded out Kanto mons more. HGSS and FRLG obviously weren't much better, but still.
 
HGSS? Restricted cross-gen evolution methods for Pokemon like Togekiss and Leafeon/Glaceon until Kanto
Just a small correction here. HG/SS doesn't allow you to get the location-based evolutions even in Kanto. They lack the icy/moss rock and a magnetic zone, meaning you can't get Leafeon, Glaceon, Probopass or Magnezone in them without trading with the Sinnoh games. I find this to be a very weird design choice as they could easily have added these zones to certain areas in the games. The icy rock could have been at Ice Path/Seafoam Islands, the moss rock in Ilex/Viridan Forest, and the magnetic zone could have been at the Power Plant or maybe something like Union Cave? They could have had them available either during the main story or restriced them to the post-game, or they could have had them in both regions for the highest convenience. I think it was a missed opportunity. I'm glad that the following games didn't repeat this mistake as all games from B/W to US/UM had locations for the icy/moss rock and the magnetic zone.

Regarding the actual topic, I agree that OR/AS definitely did the best in terms of Pokédex expansion out of the remakes. It was not much, but it was a little, and it was better than the others. I also agree that they showcased the new Pokédex additions pretty well, and they showcased several of the new Megas very well too. I hadn't thought about that before, but now that I look closer at it, I can see that they actually did that very well.
 
Just wanna give a shoutout to Sword and Shield's route 9 -- ie the big water route right between the Ice and Dark gyms. In a game where I was disappointed by the brief and extremely linear nature of all the dungeons, Route 9 is an exercise in just how to do a non-linear location; with many branching paths and different nooks and crannies to explore. What makes it for me is that there's not even any clear direction you're supposed to go in that you're choosing not to follow; so it's kind of fun just going about the place and finding your exit. It just makes the whole thing feel a lot more natural; and the end of the route just before Spikemuth is a small but wonderfully grungy grassy area to end it off. What a nice, well-designed part of the game.
 

Codraroll

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Just wanna give a shoutout to Sword and Shield's route 9 -- ie the big water route right between the Ice and Dark gyms. In a game where I was disappointed by the brief and extremely linear nature of all the dungeons, Route 9 is an exercise in just how to do a non-linear location; with many branching paths and different nooks and crannies to explore. What makes it for me is that there's not even any clear direction you're supposed to go in that you're choosing not to follow; so it's kind of fun just going about the place and finding your exit. It just makes the whole thing feel a lot more natural; and the end of the route just before Spikemuth is a small but wonderfully grungy grassy area to end it off. What a nice, well-designed part of the game.
It wouldn't surprise me if this route, along with the city of Circhester, were among the first places in the region to be designed. All the other towns and routes look so small and bare-bones, yet these feel expansive and fleshed-out, despite not really holding any story significance. It could very well be that the rest of the locations were supposed to be like that too, but that there wasn't enough time. Because, well, neither the route nor the town are particularly extensive for Pokémon, I'd say they are about par for the course when you look at previous generations. It's the rest of the areas in SwSh that are underwhelming and tiny.
 
Route 2 in Galar, after getting the upgraded rotom bike, is another great route. It's a lake with a small island, a branching river, and a small coast with an Obstagoon encounter actually obstructing your path. Slumbering Weald is another area that needs more love. When you return later in the game, it features branching pathways, rivers you can surf through, and amazing backgrounds. These two areas make me wish the routes were more mini wild areas with open ended pathways.
 
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I found it interesting how the battle against Piers, despite being against a regular gym leader in the sanctioned league, is still reminiscent of battles against evil team leaders in past games, having its own unique location (not a stadium), mechanics (no Dynamaxing) and even a unique theme.

Also, Indeedees in Pokémon Centers react to whistling.
 
I found it interesting how the battle against Piers, despite being against a regular gym leader in the sanctioned league, is still reminiscent of battles against evil team leaders in past games, having its own unique location (not a stadium), mechanics (no Dynamaxing) and even a unique theme.

Also, Indeedees in Pokémon Centers react to whistling.
I personally really liked the gigantic reference to Streets of Rage that Gym Challenge is. Very unexpected, but otherwise really well done.
 
Both the first Eternatus fight and the Leon fight felt appropriately hard. Now, I was underleveled for them, but when -1 Aegislash hit me with Shadow Ball, I saw the health drop and knew I had to pay attention.

Also, Eternatus was obviously a guaranteed catch, which means I felt free to use a Love Ball on him. There’s nothing better than keeping a world-destroying monster from the start of time in something cute.
Glad to see I wasn't the only one who opted for the Love Ball

I remember I was listening to somebody complain about how they should've changed the teams for ORAS, and during their complaining they mentioned that Glacia had two Froslass not realizing that those were new adds lol

ORAS actually mixing in the evolutions was great, and one of the best decisions it made considering how much other remakes flubbed it. A big part of the reason I didn't end up buying Let's Go was that they gutted all the great evolutions like Crobat that really rounded out Kanto mons more. HGSS and FRLG obviously weren't much better, but still.
Let's Go hurts double once you find out there are rematches for all the leaders and e4/champion and so many of them have to cap out on weird Pokemon like Seadra on Lance. The E4 do, at least, pick up Alolan Forms which is...something, I guess. Lance even gets a mega.

But hey you know, I do like that Let's Go included rematches at all. And the teams and movesets are fairly competent, even. Hopefully between Let's Go & SWSH they've finally realized people want post-game rematches against leaders and stick to it this time in future games.
 

Yung Dramps

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Small detail I noticed while exploring the Wild Area: When you catch the attention of Rhyhorn and they attempt to chase after you, they'll charge in a straight line without bothering to turn even after you evade the charge. This is a neat way to reflect their Pokedex entries, which talk a lot about how they're kinda dumb and tend to mindlessly charge forward.
 
Small detail I noticed while exploring the Wild Area: When you catch the attention of Rhyhorn and they attempt to chase after you, they'll charge in a straight line without bothering to turn even after you evade the charge. This is a neat way to reflect their Pokedex entries, which talk a lot about how they're kinda dumb and tend to mindlessly charge forward.
And they're not the only one with fun, unique movement -- I love that they decided to make Zigzagoon and Linoone so common, because their zig-zag and straight line movements make things that bit more interesting and funny in the wild area.
 
One of my favorite things to do in the Pokémon games has always been this: completing the Pokédex. I think it is a ton of fun. Working on the Pokédex has always allowed me to get to know every single Pokémon a bit better since I actually need to obtain all of them in some way. No matter if it is through capture, evolution, trade, breeding or other methods, every single one has to be obtained if you want a complete Pokédex. It also gives me some information about every Pokémon through their Pokédex entries, this is especially well done in the Gen 7 and 8 games where you get to read the Pokédex entry for every new Pokémon directly after you get it added to the Pokédex. I think this have made me appreciate every single existing species of Pokémon more because I have always had to obtain them at least once.

That said, I have never cared much for the rewards you get for completing the Pokédex (though some of the Diplomas are really nice, especially in the newer generations), and I'm not a shiny hunter so the Shiny Charm isn't very interesting to me. I'd say that when it comes to the Pokédex, the journey is more fullfilling than the goal. I have completed the Pokédex in all games I own except for Sword which is a WIP (though it should be done soon since I have obtained over 340 Pokémon the Galar Dex at this point). So yeah, completing the Pokédex has always been a big source of fun and enjoyment for me in the Pokémon games, it is usually among the first things I get around to doing in the games after beating the main story. Even if I don't like all Pokémon games, I have to say that I really liked completing the Pokédex in all of them. I had the most fun with the Pokédex in Gen 5 and 6 since they have the most Pokémon that count in total for their National Dexes, they had great Pokémon availability and fantastic training spots. They are also my two favorite generations and I think another big reason for that is because of how fun I had completing the Pokédex in them. I could say a lot more on this subject but I want to keep this short so I'll leave it with this.

More on the topic of Pokédexes. Judging by some recent posts in this thread, I take it that posting things you like about S/S is okay? This isn't a super big spoiler anyway, and it is something I forgot to include in my posts in the S/S thread. It is this: I really like how the Galar Dex features several Pokémon that have never appeared in a regional dex outside of their home region(s) before. Some notable examples are Tyrogue and the Hitmons, the Togepi line, the Joltik line, the Tympole line and probably many others too. This was really great to see and I hope even more Pokémon that haven't appeared outside of their home region will get a chance to do so in future games.

I saw a discussion about Hidden Abilities in a different thread. It was about this: in the recent games, it is hard to know whether a Pokémon has a Hidden Ability or not before you catch it. This made me think of one thing I really like about the Dream World and the Hidden Grottoes from Gen 5: Pokémon obtained from there will always have their Hidden Ability. This removes the entire question of "Does it have its Hidden Ability or not?" because they would always have their Hidden Ability, meaning you never had to worry about which Ability they had. I think it would be great if the modern games had something similar for their ways of obtaining Hidden Abilities. The one that did it the best was the DexNav in OR/AS as it allowed you to see a Pokémon's Ability before battling it, but the other games from Gen 6-8 have no such function or feature as far as I know.

And on a different note, this is my last post here on Smogon for 2019. Happy New Year everyone! Here's to 2020.
 

cityscapes

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i think the stab (same type attack bonus) mechanic is one of the most under-appreciated aspects of mons.

it's really simple and intuitive, 1.5x is an easy number to remember and it makes sense that an ice type would be able to get more power out of ice beam than a water type.

it's also one of the main building blocks for competitive pokemon to even exist or have depth at all honestly, alongside other fundamental aspects like the switching mechanic which are also easy to take for granted.

but when designing the game from the ground up, this might not have been the most obvious decision. i'm glad gamefreak saw how much they could improve the game with this mechanic, and i'm glad they've kept it around while everything else changes.
 
Sword and Shield's routes have gotten a fair amount of criticism for being short and linear, but one thing I love about them is how they integrate wild Pokemon as obstacles. The one I remember most fondly is encountering the over-leveled Carkol in Galar Mine, but other encounters like the Grapploct that swims after you, the Falinks that march from one end of the map to the other, and the Galarian Stunfisk that act like actual bear traps were also really memorable. I'm hoping this concept is iterated on in future titles since it has multiple applicable uses, like challenging the player outside of battling, and making these locations feel more unique to Pokemon.
 

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