Little things you like about Pokémon

Merritt

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-Just better incorporation into the plot in general. Even in XY Mega Evolution only really had a tangential relationship to the Xerneas/Yveltal stuff. Meanwhile in SWSH, Dynamaxing is totally baked in to stuff like Legendary role and the spectacle-based sports culture of the Galar region.
Can't really agree with this, Mega Evolution drives the A plot of XY, the B Team Flare plot only begins after the almost conclusion of the Mega Evolution storyline.

To elaborate on A and B plots, every game since Gen 3 has had a pretty clear split between two storylines, the lesser stakes initial plot that generally covers why the player leaves town to start with, and the "main" plot that generally ties to the legendary. GSC kinda sorta has this with Team Rocket starting at the lake of rage, but this wraps up pretty quickly and I'm not sure it fits.

For RSE - the A plot is the player going to show off their new Pokemon to their dad, being recommended that they go collect badges so they can fight Norman, and it wraps up right around after Norman's beaten. The B plot is Magqua, and that only really starts to kick off with Mt. Chimney, but more properly after Mt. Pyre, and this drives the player through to Sootopolis.

For DPP - A plot is arguably about chasing Barry and following him through the gym challenge, it wraps up extremely quickly and the B plot of Team Galactic strikes early and hard, beginning basically right after getting the first badge and then never letting up.

For BW - the A plot here is about going out with Cheren and Bianca to figure out what you all want to do, and this reaches a concluding point right around Nimbasa, with Bianca wrapping up her conflict in the city and Cheren getting hit by Alder right after the 4th badge. They have a bit more development after this point, but the B plot absolutely kicks off here, with Team Plasma starting to take a more central role in driving the game forward and N revealing himself as their leader by issuing a direct challenge to the player.

BW2 - the A plot is probably Hugh's journey? The A plot here is pretty weak no matter how you look at it, and the B plot of the Plasma Pirates comes in suddenly and somewhat abruptly, though it does a decent enough job carrying the game unlike the GSC Rocket plot which is more of a diversion than anything.

XY - the A plot is Mega Evolution, this drives basically every location the player goes to once they've met the professor and reaches a conclusion when the player beats up their rival using a Mega Evolution (which totally happens canonically trust me) outside the 4th gym. The B plot of Team Flare developing into an active threat happens right after this, so I think it fits.

SM and USM even though USM's changes are garbage - the A plot is going through the island challenge because the player is new and why not do it (it's not a strong A plot). The B plot is, in SM, much stronger and kicks off with Lillie's kidnapping, as the player goes out to help fix the broken family (SM) or go take over from the definitely well meaning extremist when she fails and endangers the world (USM).

SwSh I haven't played so if I'm missing some detail I apologize. The A plot seems to be "player goes off to become champion", I can't fit in the character development of Galarian Hau here because from what I've seen it never actually drives the players actions, it just kind of happens around them as they continue to battle. The B plot happens right before the champion and wraps up there too and I'm not a fan but it's clearly its own plot, it drives your actions and is not connected to the "break the unbreakable, beat the unbeatable" thing most of the game has. Dynamax um. Relates to this very abrupt B plot.

Well that was a tangent I guess. Kanto really doesn't have a split between an A and B plot, the entire time the game is pushing the player to catch up to and beat their rival (this is actually really clear when you consider that there's just a random rival battle in the middle of the team rocket climax) while everything like Team Rocket is just there In The Way between the player and the next gym.
 

Pikachu315111

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SwSh I haven't played so if I'm missing some detail I apologize. The A plot seems to be "player goes off to become champion", I can't fit in the character development of Galarian Hau here because from what I've seen it never actually drives the players actions, it just kind of happens around them as they continue to battle. The B plot happens right before the champion and wraps up there too and I'm not a fan but it's clearly its own plot, it drives your actions and is not connected to the "break the unbreakable, beat the unbeatable" thing most of the game has. Dynamax um. Relates to this very abrupt B plot.
While I would say the A Plot is the "Champion Cup", I would say B Plot is learning about "The Darkest Day" which leads to Rose unleashing Eternatus but the was present throughout the course of the game. I would also say each rival all had their own little side plots going on:
  • Hop's Plot was trying to live up to his brother's reputation but realizing he's not as skilled and interests lie elsewhere (revealed in researching about Pokemon and becoming the Professor Sonia's assistant).
  • Bede's Plot was trying to gain the respect of Rose but went to far, later being "discovered" by Opal who's personality better fits who she wants to pass down the Fairy-type Gym Leader title to.
  • Marnie's Plot was her wanting to become Champion to help the citizens of Spikemuth, which mixed with the Team Yell plot (the Gym Trainers of Spikemuth who want to help her become Champion by essentially sabotaging the Champion Cup in her favor) but comes to accept the best way to help Spikemuth is for her to accept the Dark-type Gym Leader title from her brother Piers (making me realizing what when Piers said he "wasn't a good Gym Leader" he may not be referring to his skills as a trainer but rather as an actual leader which, in Galar, Gym Leaders seem to be; Marnie does seem more sociable and beloved than her brother who admits he's done nothing to help stop Spikemuth's deterioration).
 

Celever

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I actually think it's too simplistic to describe SwSh as having an A and B plot. Maybe it's because I'm an anthropology nerd so this is the sort of stuff I love and therefore notice way too much, but the plot of SwSh felt more to me like a cultural documentary of the Galar region than anything else, and it makes sense for them to take this tactic with the UK region.

I agree with Pikachu315111 that if there were to be separate A and B plots it would be distinguished between the Champion Cup and the Galar region's lore surrounding the Darkest Day, but more than in any other game in the series these two plots are inextricably linked. The Champion Cup exists because of the effects of the Darkest Day that are still felt during the course of the game: Dynamax is possible because of the energy released during the disaster, and the entire point of the Champion Cup is that Dynamax makes it an awesome spectator sport. But the connections run far deeper than this.

The entire plot of SwSh is a parallel to the tale of King Arthur. There are "Three Worthies" in the story of King Arthur: Merlin, Sir Pellias and Sir Gawaine, who all receive a chapter to themselves. I believe that the player character, Bede, and Hop are direct counterparts to each of those 3 characters respectively. Then, Zacian and Zamazenta are King Arthur himself, Leon, Rose, and Sordward/Shieldbert are rival kings to the throne, Oleana is Archade/Ettarde, Opal is Nimue, and Marnie is Morgana. Here is the justification for all of these characters:
  • While the tale of King Arthur is of course centred around King Arthur, it's actually centred around Merlin even more so. King Arthur is only featured in the tale when with Merlin, while Merlin has passages by himself. This is enough justification for the player character being Merlin, but there's more detail on exactly why this is in the King Arthur bullet point.
  • Sir Pellias is kind of a side character in the story, but has an entire book to himself. His whole shtick is being torn between 2 women, and therefore 2 life aspirations for himself. Archade is the maiden who Sir Pellias first falls for, but who rejects his love and instead uses him for her own ends -- in King Arthur this is simply her own entertainment by embarrassing him, but SwSh took it to another level by having him collect Wishing Stars for her. This is where the original tale ends, but the story of King Arthur has a sequel from a French writer: Le Morte d'Arthur. In this, Ettarde (Archade's name in this version) rejects Sir Pellias' love wholely, and while Sir Pellias still tries to make contact with her outside of her castle, a Lady of the Lake named Nimue happens upon Sir Pellias who is still heartbroken over the rejections from Ettarde. Nimue falls for Sir Pellias herself and it's reciprocated, so Sir Pellias and Nimue leave Ettarde and marry each other happily. SwSh's plot surrounding Bede is a synthesis of these two versions, with Oleana using Bede, who is infatuated with the power of Rose rather than Oleana herself but it's the same difference, and then Opal later saves Bede and builds him back up with a new purpose once he was unable to fulfil the purpose he was previously pursuing -- being the Fairy-Type Gym Leader. Furthermore, Bede's ace is Hatterene, and Rapunzel, who Hatterene is based off, is directly inspired by Archade (or Hatterene is just straight-up based on Archade, I'm still undecided on this one). Sir Pellias is also mentioned specifically as participating in the trials to be king, which Bede's intrusion upon the final Champion Cup tournament is a reference to, but more on that later.
  • Sir Gawaine is Merlin's right-hand man throughout the story of King Arthur, but is generally a rather enigmatic figure. What we do know of him is that he is the most human of any of the Great Knights, who has a big heart that sometimes undermines his fighting capabilities and motivations. In early texts, he is portrayed as a "hero of the people", protecting women and children and the poor more than any other Knight of the Round Table. In later texts, he is painted in a more negative light -- he embarks on the Grail quest for fae food and drink, rather than for more noble reasons such as his faith in his king or country. Overall, though, the impression of him is that he is a flawed hero: he has huge capability but his mind often makes him falter, and though he's a key part in Merlin's success, he's also a key part in his own failure. Sounds like Hop to a tee, really.
  • Marnie being Morgana is kind of a quick one. Morgana plays the role of (anti-)hero, originally beginning as somewhat antagonistic but later coming to Merlin's side and acting as a formidable enchantress in battle who saves Merlin in the climax. In other words, exactly what Marnie (with Piers) does in the climax of SwSh. Also, Marnie uses the Impidimp line as her ace -- even though they gave her a Morpeko in cutscenes for damned fan pandering, she uses Grimmsnarl-Gigantamax so Grimmsnarl is her real ace -- and the entire line is based on something Morgana did. Morgana was a fae enchantress, and in one tale she summoned a Green Knight to do exactly what is described in the move False Surrender. It's why Morgrem (who literally has Morg in its name for Morgana) has a halberd for its hair, and why Grimmsnarl is green. This means Marnie is undoubtedly Morgana in my mind, since she plays the same role in SwSh as Morgana does in the tale of King Arthur, and uses a Pokémon based on something Morgana created in said tale as her ace.
  • Now, to understand the relationship between Zacian/Zamazenta (herefore referred to as Zaciazenta), Leon, and Rose, we need to understand briefly what the original tale of King Arthur is all about -- which all of you already know, even if you don't know it came from here. You know that old faithful of a sword being stuck in a stone which only the worthy may draw? That's King Arthur, and Merlin summoned the stone and stuck the sword into it. The entire story is basically Arthur keeping on removing this sword to prove that he's the rightful heir to the throne and all of the other king-hopefuls, who failed to do so themselves, demanding new attempts at later dates, and then trying to kill Arthur between the retrials so they could be king. This is directly paralleled in SwSh: it's stated that Zaciazenta is the only Pokémon capable of wielding the sword (or shield, which Pokémon added to have 2 versions but lore-wise is exactly the same as the sword). The story of King Arthur begins with Arthur's father, the current King, dying, which Merlin foresaw in a holy prophecy and so decided to protect his son who was newborn. In the 18 years that ensued while Arthur was still too young to claim the throne, many lesser kings and lords sought to control the whole Kingdom. Some, like Leon, did so through competitions and battle while others, like Rose, did so through intimidating the people of the region, taking merchants as prisoner and the like. Others, like Sordward and Shieldbert, laid false claim to the throne and simply hoped to gather enough of a following to ascend through popular opinion. In the end, there is a final attempt at drawing the sword from the stone with a huge audience and many hopeful kings attempting the trial. Once Arthur, accompanied by Merlin, wields the sword for the final time against all of his rivals, everyone finally admits that he is the rightful King and he ascends to the throne. This final trial is the final tournament culminating in the defeat of Leon, while the other gym battles are competitions of drawing the sword Arthur conducted against lesser rivals. I believe that canonically the player character uses Zaciazenta in this battle, and the victory over Leon is a parallel to Arthur drawing the sword for the final time.
So, why does all of this mean that SwSh doesn't have an A or B plot? Because the events of the game all happened before. I believe that the Darkest Day refers to when there were 18 years of turmoil within the region when it lacked a valid king/protectorate, in much the same way as we refer to the period in which King Arthur is set as the "Dark Ages". King Arthur's ascension to the throne is supposed to be the end of the Dark Ages for Britain while the rest of Europe stayed in it for a couple centuries more, because King Arthur was such a great king. Therefore, though it was JRPG'd up and is portrayed in the game as an actual dark swirl in the sky, I think the Darkest Day is symbolic and is meant to refer to the Galar region's people being in huge turmoil without food or shelter, as there was no benevolent king to look out for them. The first time Zaciazenta ascended to the throne they solved the region's problems by overthrowing the nobles who were withholding these crucial things from the population, and it was seen as the region returning to the light. The fact that Dynamax Energy is used to power the entire region could well support this, and there were previous fanatics like Rose who kept pumping the energy into Eternatus so the Galar Region was left without power for a long time and society started to break down.

Think of Breath of the Wild. There's no A or B plot in that: there's a plot and there's gameplay, and as you play the game you find justifications for your actions through the plot that you slowly uncover over the course of the game. SwSh is exactly the same. You're acting out the story of King Arthur through the Champion Cup while learning what the story of King Arthur actually is through researching the Darkest Day. Though it uncomfortably shifts between being symbolic and being a real disaster for the region, I don't think this undermines that SwSh has one plot that underpins the entire game in two different forms, as opposed to 2 actual plots. For that reason, I agree with Yung Dramps' previous assertion that Dynamax was implemented into the story of the game much better than any other major mechanic before this (especially mega-evolution, which was used to denote checkpoints rather than having any deep lore surrounding it). Dynamax Energy is crucial to Galar both in its customs and traditions, and in its actual functioning as a society as it's what powers everything. This is shown in both a historical and contemporary lens, comparing mythologised events to how they really happen which is far more grounded and oftentimes people don't realise they're making history at the time. It's actually a really neat way to tackle the plot, though I still find it lacking in places (Eternatus is kinda tacked on).
 
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Pikachu315111

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A few pages back I talked about the shocking amount of work that went into the Curry making of SwSh, mainly the art and descriptions. Well, I just learned another interesting thing about the curry artwork.

So, when making curry you'll recall two plates are made, one for the player and one for their Pokemon. However one of the plate always remained medium and the other would sometimes be piled with curry. I originally thought it had something to do with how well you made the curry and/or the quality of ingredients, but turns out that's not what decides the plate sizes. Turns out the left plate is the player's plate and it's always medium size. The right plate is for your Pokemon and it's size (spoonful, medium, overfilled) actually depended on your Pokemon's size. The only thing making the curry good/using high quality ingredients effected was the taste rating.

Why do I mention all this? Well because I just learned that, even though the player's plate and the medium sized Pokemon plate look the same, there's actually slight differences between the two! Instead of just using the same image, they made two slightly different image that probably 99% of players won't notice. Bulbapedia has all the images but here are some which just stand out to me for one reason or another:

Sausage Curry & Rich Curry: They had the sausages placed differently on each plate, notably the Pokemon's plate has a sausage laying on top of another. This is also a case for the Rich Curry.


Toast Curry: While the butter on the player's toast is sorta connected, the Pokemon's plate has two separate blobs of butter.

Bone Curry: Even the bone stick was redrawn.

Herb Medley Curry: The herb in the middle isn't only positioned slightly differently but the player's has an extra branch to it (that's at least visible).

Salad Curry: While I said 99% of players probably wouldn't notice, there are some curry where the difference is more obvious then others even with a slight glance. Salad Curry is a good example as it's purple pieces are big enough to stand out.

Tropical Curry, Cheese-Covered Curry, & Instant-Noodle Curry: These curry do something I'm surprised the others don't and swap around some details. Tropical has the flower colors switched while the other two you'd think were just mirrored but they're also both individually drawn (well, the Instant-Noodle cup is copy & pasted, not even given different light reflections or shadows).


Whipped-Cream Curry & Decorative Curry: Finally these two have probably the "biggest" difference in design (though not the most noticeable like the above few examples) that's not just swapping elements. The decorative swirl in the middle of the Whipped Cream Curry is distinctly different (roughly the same shape but the player's is more neatly done). Meanwhile the Decorative has a ton of differences from the placement of the candy(?), the line pattern that makes Eevee's face, and even the facial expressions are swapped around (player's plate has Eevee closed-mouth and Pikachu open-mouth, Pokemon's is vice versa).



Seriously, they put so much love & care & attention to detail for the curry making... and yet the rest of the game they cut as many corners as they could! We need the team who was responsible for the curry part of the game in charge of designing the entirety of the game!
 
I really like all the quality of life changes that GF made for Competitive battling. Nature mints and breeding have already been addressed, but I want to talk about prizes. For those that don’t know, when you battle on the ladder for cartridge, you can gain prizes by competing ranging from balm mushrooms to zincs. But the biggest boom is that I got 600 BP! Not kidding. This has made future preparation much easier for me. If it was not Dexit and Dynamaxing, I’d say these are the best games for getting into competitive Pokémon.
 
I like the nurse trainers that heal your team after you beat them from gen 5. They allow the level designers to make longer routes and dungeons without them becoming annoying and draining.

Similarly, I like that rangers give you berries as a reward for beating them. Berries can add a nice layer of strategy to the combat, yet they are extremely underutilized in most games, mainly because they are often annoying to get. Black and white did a decent job with the berries though. The best example is that Cheren gives you a chesto berry right before you fight Lenora, who uses a whatchog with hypnosis.

It's a shame that the game just gives you the option to use chesto berries. You don'thave to work for it. It would have been even more rewarding if you found and beat a ranger that gives you the chesto berry through exploration, and gain the upper hand on Lenora that way. That would also be a much more subtle way to help the player beat a difficult boss fight, rather than, say, giving the player the scald TM right before the fire trial.

The route kahuna's from S/M are a nice evolution of this risk reward mechanic. They really encourage the player to go and explore the route fully. If we ever get a game where there is something worth exploring again, I would love to have trainers that give rewards back.
 

Pikachu315111

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So a small think I learned recently. Remember the episode of the Sun & Moon anime where Kartana appeared? You don't? Well to be fair it was pretty much filler with nothing major really happening, just Kartana going around and cutting things, Ash & co trying to stop it, all ending with Kartana saving the day by slicing a meteor in half that was to hit the Pokemon School.

Well, turns out there was some fun trivia concerning the episode: Kartana talked... in reverse. So while normally it sounds like it's saying gibberish, if you play it backwards:
I think I have a new favorite phrase.:bloblul:

Trivia of the episode on Bulbapedia says the phrase is often said my samurai in samurai movies... BUT the more likely source is a samurai character from Lupin the Third, Goemon Ishikawa XIII, who often says the phrase. How do I know? Well Bulbapedia also points out Kartana's voice actor is the same as Goemon Ishikawa XIII (Daisuke Namikawa, who is a prominent Japanese voice actor in other anime and also voices other Pokemon characters such as Lucain, Lucario, Rotom Dex, & Mimikyu). Second, the animation for Team Rocket's motto is in the same style as Lupin the Third. And if you think this sounds strange remember the writers did a whole episode to honor Jessie's Japanese voice actor.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
Been playing Platinum recently and after having the bike for a while I can say I genuinely appreciate Sword and Shield not having a bike theme. Sinnoh has so many utterly outstanding route/town themes (I still think no game before or since has come close to DPP in this regard), and yet when I get on my bike I feel sad because I have to drown out all those wonderful compositions in favor of the increasingly-repetitive bike tune. It's also really jarring in situations like at Valor Lakefront/Route 213 where I'm basking in the gorgeous, gentle seaside melody before pressing Y and having all that suddenly shift to "DUUN DUUN DUUUUUUUUN DOO DOOO DOOO DOOO DOOO DOOO DOOOOOOOOOO DOO DOO DOO" SWSH let me go fast while still letting me enjoy all the music.
 
Been playing Platinum recently and after having the bike for a while I can say I genuinely appreciate Sword and Shield not having a bike theme. Sinnoh has so many utterly outstanding route/town themes (I still think no game before or since has come close to DPP in this regard), and yet when I get on my bike I feel sad because I have to drown out all those wonderful compositions in favor of the increasingly-repetitive bike tune. It's also really jarring in situations like at Valor Lakefront/Route 213 where I'm basking in the gorgeous, gentle seaside melody before pressing Y and having all that suddenly shift to "DUUN DUUN DUUUUUUUUN DOO DOOO DOOO DOOO DOOO DOOO DOOOOOOOOOO DOO DOO DOO" SWSH let me go fast while still letting me enjoy all the music.
Aah, yes. The Super Sonic problem, except instead of seven chaos emeralds it's two wheels and some pedals.
 
Vulgate cycle nonsense
Phooey on you french fairy-tales phooey I say, the only real arthurian legend is written in welsh *shakes fist at sky*

In a more serious note, as someone who hates the Hatterene family since is based on nothing , I have to ask what makes you think the family is related with Ettarde?
Heck, what makes you think Ettarde is related with Rapunzel? Rapunzel's story is from italian tradition

(I mean the family does have hair, but what if anything does Rapunzel has to do with hats eludes me and is not as if the the length of their hair is particularly important)
 
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I enjoy how there's no set place in the game for Fossil Pokémon to be encountered, and that almost every game has had them encountered in a different point in the adventure.

In Kanto, it's decidedly late-game you get them. This is naturally a bit debatable since Kanto is such an open-ended map prone to a lot of sequence breaking, but it's quite clear you're supposed to get your seventh gym badge here, and most people end up finding out what a Kabuto, Omanyte or Aerodactyl is at this point in the game.
But unlike, say, late-game Psuedo legendaries that hardly became a trend -- in Hoenn the fossils are mid-game, right after your 4th gym.
In Sinnoh they are surprisingly very early on, encountered as soon as just before your 2nd gym (though the way the game is designed in a way that you're likely only going to get it after said 2nd gym).
Even after those three staples had been covered, Unova still tried to make a different location -- between gyms 3 and 4 is somewhere between early and middle game for an interesting change of pace.
Kalos is even earlier than in Sinnoh, with the fossils being found and restored in a town before the 2nd gym.

Alola and Galar have their fossils at similar stages to other regions, but just about every timestamp had been covered at this point so it's hard to blame them for not trying something new (and even then, Galar tries something new in a very different way).

It's just something neat and interesting that occurred to me as I'm collecting Fossil Pokémon at the moment; that even though I've held this conception for a while of Fossil Pokémon "typically being late-game", that could hardly be further from the truth as just about every game that has them goes out of their way to put them in a very different stage in the game to what's been previously done. Nice.

Edit: Oh, and HGSS goes a step further and puts them in Post-game. God damn.
 
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Pikachu315111

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Huh, this is a cute little game idea:
At first I thought it was a sort of Pokerap thing but obviously WAY too short for that. Then I took a closer look at the names to see if I saw a theme and noticed they had the last letter in the Pokemon's name a different color. Then I realized what they were doing: it's a word game where the next Pokemon's name must start with the letter the last Pokemon's name ended with. Curious how well it would work in English.
 
Huh, this is a cute little game idea:
At first I thought it was a sort of Pokerap thing but obviously WAY too short for that. Then I took a closer look at the names to see if I saw a theme and noticed they had the last letter in the Pokemon's name a different color. Then I realized what they were doing: it's a word game where the next Pokemon's name must start with the letter the last Pokemon's name ended with. Curious how well it would work in English.
Oh it's shiritori. You basically have the rules right though if we're splitting hairs its by the last kana; in a standard game the kill kana is the "n" kana since no Japanese noun starts with ん . Wikipedia has a decent page on more rules & variants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiritori
In Pokemon's case ,looks like Taillow is the streak ender; either that or the singers just get jumbled up for a gag.

An english version would probably keep going for abvout the same length of time, we'd jsut have different enders.
 
I stumbled upon this delightful pair of Pokedex entries from Sword and Shield:


It first tries to find a rock to live in, but if there are no suitable rocks to be found, Dwebble may move in to the ports of a Hippowdon.


Stones can get stuck in the ports on their bodies. Dwebble help dislodge such stones, so Hippowdon look after these Pokémon.

This symbiosis hasn't been mentioned before now. I think it's great that Game Freak looked back at two old Pokemon and thought about how they might interact.

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Another thing I really like are the animated sprites in Crystal. Their use of multiple key frames and occasional motion blur makes them more appealing than the limited animation of Emerald and Gen 4, and WAY more appealing than the distorted boned tweens of Gen 5. Hitmontop provides a fantastic demonstration.

Crystal's animation employs motion blur to sell the speed of Hitmontop's spin, and it even has Top swing his arms back to wind up for the spin. Emerald's is okay, but the rapid flashing between two poses doesn't look quite as nice as the motion blur, and there isn't any anticipation. And Gen 5 is just... ugh. Hitmontop's features become incredibly grainy as he rocks side to side, and his hops are so slow that it feels like he's floating.

Here are some other Crystal animations that I really like.

Hitmonlee has my favorite animation. His complex kicking looks very fluid, and suggests a great level of skill when you consider that he can perform that motion while maintaining his dynamic pose.



Some nice-looking ripples, plus a bit of sheen on Suicune's headdress.



BOING!


Multiple characters exchanging glances is funny.



The shading around its eyes nicely convey a more furrowed brow, and the little particles above Primeape's head really sell its anger.



Folks lined up just to watch him flex. And this perfect package packed a pair of pretty pecs.


Nice use of dithering to show the smoke dissipating.


It's subtle, but the light from Elekid's horns casts a highlight on its raised arm.



A nice way of displaying the transient nature of Cyndaquil's fire.



Something something jojo


Cute little bubbles popping.

EDIT: A lot of the images weren't showing up for me, so I swapped them out for versions from a different source. I couldn't find another source for Unown B, unfortunately.

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ANOTHER thing that I really like is the human art in Pokemon Trozei. The art style looks like a combination of Danny Phantom, Dexter's Laboratory, and The Powerpuff Girls. I absolutely adore it. Take a look.

Lucy Fleetfoot (Agent)


Lucy Fleetfoot (Civilian)


Professor P


Baron Phobos


Buzz


Avery


Grock




Mr. Who
 
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Been playing Platinum recently and after having the bike for a while I can say I genuinely appreciate Sword and Shield not having a bike theme. Sinnoh has so many utterly outstanding route/town themes (I still think no game before or since has come close to DPP in this regard), and yet when I get on my bike I feel sad because I have to drown out all those wonderful compositions in favor of the increasingly-repetitive bike tune. It's also really jarring in situations like at Valor Lakefront/Route 213 where I'm basking in the gorgeous, gentle seaside melody before pressing Y and having all that suddenly shift to "DUUN DUUN DUUUUUUUUN DOO DOOO DOOO DOOO DOOO DOOO DOOOOOOOOOO DOO DOO DOO" SWSH let me go fast while still letting me enjoy all the music.
I don't mind most bike themes but it would be nice to have it be optional or something, especially for more solemn areas, as you mentioned.

I despise the DPPt bike theme though, mostly because of the start. It was worse in Diamond and Pearl because the game kicked you off when you went through gates. :fukyu:
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
So we've been having a pretty extensive discussion over on the "Little things that annoy you" thread about gym leader teams and which are the worst sparked by a post I made about the Johto gym leader teams being kinda bad. At one point Pikadavid14 chimed in to talk about his biggest grievance (repeating Pokemon selection e.g. Misty using Staryu and Starmie) and how he'd fix the culprits generation by generation and it made me realize: Despite sticking to the OG 151, Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee actually did a TON to revamp major NPC teams to remove those redundancies and make them use a greater variety of Pokemon to an extent no other remake in the past has done. Let's go through them one by one.

Brock- Nothing was really wrong with his OG team so no changes.
Misty- The aforementioned redundant Staryu is replaced with Psyduck
Lt. Surge- Pikachu is replaced with Magnemite
Erika- No changes
Koga- This is where the big changes really start to kick in. The two Koffings are replaced with Golbat and Venomoth with the latter even becoming his ace, possibly as a nod to Janine
Sabrina- Kadabra and Venomoth are replaced with Slowbro and Jynx
Blaine- Growlithe and Ponyta are replaced with Magmar and Ninetales
Giovanni- The first Rhyhorn is removed bringing down his Pokemon count to 4, but it still gets rid of the redundant Pokemon

These changes even extend to the Elite Four!

Lorelei- No changes
Bruno- One of the Onix is replaced with Poliwrath
Agatha- Unfortunately still stuck with 2 Gengar, but the Haunter is replaced with Arbok oops am dum she had that all along Weezing was the new mon she got lel
Lance- The infamous 2 Dragonairs are replaced with Seadra and Charizard, the former likely a nod to Clair and stand-in for Kingdra, the latter from his GSC Champion team

Now I don't have a particularly strong opinion on the Let's Go games, but I gotta admit these are extremely cool alterations that make me excited to see what Let's Go Johto games might do. Fix the level-scaling too and you've got a purchase from me!
 
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Can't blame Agatha for having 2 Gengars too much. There's only one ghost type that generation and Lets' go only added one other (Alolan Marowak) and they wanted to avoid using those until post game. And unlike Dragons, who have a bunch of quasi-dragons, Ghosts...don't. Spooky poison types are alls he has to go on and at that point you may as well not even bother with the ghost themeing, so you gotta keep 2 gengars.

Also she had an Arbok since gen 1, she replaced the Huanter with a Weezing.

Honestly if the Let's Go games jsut...had...a normal wild battle system.....I think I'd probably buy & enjoy them a lot. There's a lot of genuinely interesting things they did with it
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
Honestly if the Let's Go games jsut...had...a normal wild battle system.....I think I'd probably buy & enjoy them a lot. There's a lot of genuinely interesting things they did with it
Mind telling us some of these things? I'm not overly familiar with Let's Go and would like to hear more
 
Mind telling us some of these things? I'm not overly familiar with Let's Go and would like to hear more
So first off, like you say, the gym leader team revamps are good. They also have some interesting moves. Like Misty has scald, that's kind of crazy I think.
There's also post-game leader rematches, complete with team overhauls & full movesets. The elite 4 even use 6 pokemon!
Adding Green is cool, and the fact you can face all three of Red, Green & Blue is neat. Blue taking over the Viridian Gym in the post game is cool too.
There's Archer cameos/battles, of all things, that was nice.
Following pokemon is very good, as is riding the larger ones around. I've seen people fly around on Charizard in the post game and it's pretty cool, since the world is basically seamless and you can go all over.
Coach Trainers, sort of a side grade to the "route bosses" from Alola, as slightly harder trainers that give you goodies.
The starter eevee/pikachu having buffed stats and special moves helps resolve one of Yellow's worst traits AND yoou're not forced to use them and they'll still travel on your shoulder.
Post game's Master Trainers are an interesting idea that appeals to me specifically. You raise up one specific Pokemon as best you can and you fight another super trained version of that Pokemon. Kind of a tedious thing if you went all the way with it but it's an idea I really like?
Overworld Pokemon are the best thing it brings forward as an idea, and I'm glad it's in SWSH.
I like how you can find starters and the legendary birds on the overworld too, that's just really neat to me.

I would still have an assortment of issues with the game (Exp share, kanto pokemon only, getting rid of abilities AND held items, etc) but there's nough things where I go "hey that's kind of really neat" and would probably bite on if the one bgi thing I cant get over wasn't there.
 
So I downloaded HOME the day it came out and still haven't transferred anything from my older games over yet; one reason is I'm still wary of the apparent Hyper Training loss glitch that people have been mentioning (is that still happening?) (not a huge deal-breaker for me though), and another is that I've been busy gathering things from my previous games that weren't available in Sword that are now available to transfer so I can do it all in one big batch.

Since all my other friends got Sword and not Shield, I realized that I could just transfer a Ponyta/Rapidash from an older game via Bank and get my Galarian Ponyta/Rapidash that way (thanks, Pokemon White, for the random Rapidash I caught back in like 2011!). I've been wanting a Galarian Corsola/Cursola since they were revealed, and I realized I could just transfer a regular Corsola from a previous game and just breed it in Galar. Then I realized that I wanted the Cursed Body hidden ability, followed quickly by the realization that I should be able to breed a regular Corsola with its hidden ability of Regenerator and get one with Cursed Body in Galar (please tell me that works, or this is all sadly in vain). I tried SOS Chaining Corsola in Moon, but that proved to be very frustrating (stupid Mareanie); so a quick Internet search revealed that the next easiest method of obtaining a hidden ability Corsola would probably be using DexNav in Alpha Sapphire, and after a bit, I finally got one! In my quest for other hidden abilities I currently don't have access to, I also snagged a stationary encounter Zen Mode Darmanitan in White, and also even claimed a Defiant Farfetch'd (that I can hopefully breed in Galar to get Scrappy Sirfetch'd) that I forgot about years ago in the Entree Forest. I've also been grabbing some legendaries that I should be able to transfer over now, including a Mystery Gift Keldeo from Gen 5 that I never picked up, and the Kyurem and Reshiram from White 2 that I never got around to capturing.

Long (ongoing) story short, I've been on a scavenger hunt across generations and consoles to gather Pokemon to bring to the big screen in Sword on the Switch; it's been tedious, but rewarding to realize that I had more resources available to me than I initially thought. It also feels like I'm bringing together all these individual threads of my journey in these Pokemon games from the last 10-ish years, and it's pretty cool. It feels like one big game, really, and I appreciate that!
 

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