Little things you like about Pokémon

[Pikachu315111]

(Also: Everyone who found a Bagon in Hoenn on your own without looking at a guide, raise your hand. Yeah, me neither.)

That reminds me of the, looking back in hindsight, rather glorious troll move in DP where you're told that Gible can be found in Wayward Cave but can spend hours running around yet never encounter it once. Then you (somehow) learn that there's actually a second entrance to a cutoff section of Wayward Cave that was hidden behind one of the pillars of the Cycling Road that you need Strength to access where the little ankle biters live. I'm sure GF were all giggling to themselves of the collective hours of player's time they've wasted (probably why it's also one of the oddly early evolving Late Bloomers, as an apology for the joke).

 

[Codraroll]

Dreepy doesn't really strike me as a "noibat case", mainly cause it's a pseudo-lege and they tend (not always, but usually) to be relegated to postgame areas to begin with.

To begin with, yes, but in later games many Pseudo-legendaries can be obtained early and used throughout your adventure. In the Gen VII games, you can theoretically have a whole team of old pseudo-legendaries to challenge the Elite Four: Dratini is found by fishing in Vast Poni Canyon, Larvitar is in Diglett's Cave (USUM only), Bagon on Route 3, Beldum on Mt. Hokulani, Gabite in Haina Desert, Deino in Ten Carat Hill (Island Scan, SM only), and Goomy in Lush Jungle - note that all but one of them are found before you even set foot on Poni Island. XY also makes all the pseudo-legendaries except Metagross (Friend Safari exclusive) available before the postgame. While pseudo-legendaries tend to be treated as a bit of a reward for perseverance in their introductory games, both in terms of where you find them and what you need to do to evolve them, later games let you have them early and raise them as adventure companions. You're never gonna get that much usability out of Dreepy, because as Siggu said, it combines the worst traits of Noibat and Tynamo, in addition to being in the Slow exp. group.

All that being said, this is a positive thread, and I can also see some interesting opportunities for Dreepy in future games. They're not going to just scrap it; its status as a pseudo-legendary gives it enough popularity to be reasonably safe from being Dexited forever. It probably won't be useful, but it might still be available. As it is part Ghost-type, I think it will become a rare catch in future ghostly locations, bringing yet more type variety to these sorts of habitats.

However, the biggest good news is that Drakloak could be given a time to shine. They could potentially also give it the Dragonair treatment (in Yellow, you could fish for level 10-15 Dragonair in the Safari Zone) and let Drakloak be an exceptionally rare catch in Dreepy's native areas, which could be worth pursuing. Drakloak actually seems to be designed with this role in mind already: it has a strangely expansive level-up movepool, getting all of Dreepy's moves plus Dragon Pulse at level 1, then it learns new moves at levels 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, and 48. All this in spite of it normally being unobtainable until level 50. Not that I think we'll see level 6 Drakloak running around any time soon, but potentially you could be spending an hour or so in your next Pokémon game tracking down a Drakloak in the late level 20s, presumably using the weird battle gimmick like Horde Battles, DexNav, SOS Battles, Raid Battles or whatever the heck they will come up with next.

 

[lucariomaster2]

However, the biggest good news is that Drakloak could be given a time to shine. They could potentially also give it the Dragonair treatment (in Yellow, you could fish for level 10-15 Dragonair in the Safari Zone) and let Drakloak be an exceptionally rare catch in Dreepy's native areas, which could be worth pursuing. Drakloak actually seems to be designed with this role in mind already: it has a strangely expansive level-up movepool, getting all of Dreepy's moves plus Dragon Pulse at level 1, then it learns new moves at levels 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, and 48. All this in spite of it normally being unobtainable until level 50. Not that I think we'll see level 6 Drakloak running around any time soon, but potentially you could be spending an hour or so in your next Pokémon game tracking down a Drakloak in the late level 20s, presumably using the weird battle gimmick like Horde Battles, DexNav, SOS Battles, Raid Battles or whatever the heck they will come up with next.

Of course, then you would still be stuck with a Pokemon with awfully mediocre stats until level 60, long after the rest of your team has fully evolved, and depending on the game potentially after the main story has already completed or is about to complete.

 

[Codraroll]

Of course, then you would still be stuck with a Pokemon with awfully mediocre stats until level 60, long after the rest of your team has fully evolved, and depending on the game potentially after the main story has already completed or is about to complete.

Still a pretty substantial improvement, though. It saves you from having it even worse than that up to level 50, at least.

And well, the pre-evolutions of Pseudo-legendaries haven't historically been very great either way. Most recently I used Larvitar in USUM. Much of Poni Island played like a nightmare for it: stick Pupitar in the back of the team, and it doesn't get enough XP to keep up with the rest of the team level-wise. Stick it in the front and let it battle, and it will be outsped and OHKO'd ... and the rest of the team still gets tons of XP when they win the battle. Likewise, past experiences with Dragonair (not enough power to KO anything, needs to heal after every battle) or Shelgon (so slow it always takes hits, requiring a constant stream of medicine) have been largely similar. Pseudo-legendaries are designed to let you struggle to earn their final form. I just think Dreepy takes it way too far.

 

[lucariomaster2]

Still a pretty substantial improvement, though. It saves you from having it even worse than that up to level 50, at least.

And well, the pre-evolutions of Pseudo-legendaries haven't historically been very great either way. Most recently I used Larvitar in USUM. Much of Poni Island played like a nightmare for it: stick Pupitar in the back of the team, and it doesn't get enough XP to keep up with the rest of the team level-wise. Stick it in the front and let it battle, and it will be outsped and OHKO'd ... and the rest of the team still gets tons of XP when they win the battle. Likewise, past experiences with Dragonair (not enough power to KO anything, needs to heal after every battle) or Shelgon (so slow it always takes hits, requiring a constant stream of medicine) have been largely similar. Pseudo-legendaries are designed to let you struggle to earn their final form. I just think Dreepy takes it way too far.

I think the problem with the Dragapult line in actuality isn't its high evolution level or the low power level of Dreepy. It's the fact that there are only 10 levels between getting Drakloak, and then it evolving again into Dragapult. This means that even if Dreepy weren't relegated to a high-level endgame location in the Wild Area, and could instead be caught earlier on, you would be stuck with what is essentially baggage until level 50 at which point it very quickly jumps to the dominating final stage. There's almost no time to enjoy the middle stage; to this day, I often forget that Drakloak exists at all because of how pointless it is.

Others in this thread have talked about having Dreepy go the Beldum route: making it more obvious that the first stage is near-useless (e.g. giving it only one learnable move), but then drastically lowering its first evolution level thereby giving more time in the spotlight to the middle stage. That's a neat idea in concept, but I think it actually misses the point. Your stories of trying to use Pupitar, Dragonair, and Shelgon on your team are making me increasingly believe one thing: that pseudo-legendary Pokemon are not, and were never, meant to be caught or trained during the main story. Garchomp manages to make it work by fully evolving at a fairly low level, being in a game that goes to a fairly high level, and Gabite actually being a pretty decent Pokemon in its own right, but everyone else? As you very well described, they're baggage until they reach their powerful final stages. They're meant to be an additional challenge, a reward for not just completing the main story, in which you'll probably see the Pokemon in question being used by the Champion or something similar, but also for tracking down the Pokemon's base form and then putting in the blood, sweat, and tears necessary to train it up in the postgame.

I know I'm repeating myself here, but that's why I think that Metagross is the best-executed pseudo-legendary Pokemon: obtaining it in its debut game is explicitly impossible before you defeat Steven. The only other such Pokemon I can think of that fit this criteria are Tyranitar, which loses points for not showing up at all until Mt. Silver where it's a rare encounter, and Dragapult which we have discussed ad nauseam. (Seriously, how hard would it have been to give Red a Tyranitar, or replace one of Lance's Dragonite with one?)

While writing this post, I had another idea on how to fix the Dragapult line. Larvitar is found at around level 15 when the rest of the Mt. Silver encounters are in the 40s and 50s; why not do the same to Dreepy? Make it a permanent, if rare, encounter in that one spot in the Wild Area (or move it out of the Wild Area altogether), but have it be found at an extremely low level compared to everything else. This change, plus having it evolve into Drakloak earlier, would put it more in line with the other pseudo-legends and might make it worth hunting for.

Of course, Exp. Candy removes the entire aspect of level grinding, but that's a different post altogether.

 

[DreamPrince]

That reminds me of the, looking back in hindsight, rather glorious troll move in DP where you're told that Gible can be found in Wayward Cave but can spend hours running around yet never encounter it once. Then you (somehow) learn that there's actually a second entrance to a cutoff section of Wayward Cave that was hidden behind one of the pillars of the Cycling Road that you need Strength to access where the little ankle biters live. I'm sure GF were all giggling to themselves of the collective hours of player's time they've wasted (probably why it's also one of the oddly early evolving Late Bloomers, as an apology for the joke).

Really? You needed Strength for it? I remember finding one without the need of Strength. Though you are right on the guide thing. My brother had to Show me where the cave was in Pearl. Or was it Platinum? Can’t remember exactly, it’s been too long.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Really? You needed Strength for it? I remember finding one without the need of Strength. Though you are right on the guide thing. My brother had to Show me where the cave was in Pearl. Or was it Platinum? Can’t remember exactly, it’s been too long.

There are five boulders in DP blocking the way to the stairs, with no Pokémon appearing in the boulder room. Platinum removed the boulders, leading to early access to both Gible and, more interestingly, TM26 Earthquake.

Since DP locked both behind getting your sixth badge and enabling Strength, Gible needed to be raised ~20 levels to catch up with your team if you wanted to use it before postgame.

It’s interesting how, as far as I can remember, getting EQ so early in Platinum doesn’t really break the game like I’d expect it to.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Ninja'd but I'll post what I have anyway as I've included links to two videos.

Really? You needed Strength for it? I remember finding one without the need of Strength. Though you are right on the guide thing. My brother had to Show me where the cave was in Pearl. Or was it Platinum? Can’t remember exactly, it’s been too long.

In Diamond & Pearl, when you enter the cave there's a block formation you couldn't get past without Strength. Nothing spawns in that room, you need to move the boulder to access the stairs that leads to the lower room where Gible can be found.

In Platinum they removed the boulders so you can go down the stairs right away.

 

[DreamPrince]

There are five boulders in DP blocking the way to the stairs, with no Pokémon appearing in the boulder room. Platinum removed the boulders, leading to early access to both Gible and, more interestingly, TM26 Earthquake.

Since DP locked both behind getting your sixth badge and enabling Strength, Gible needed to be raised ~20 levels to catch up with your team if you wanted to use it before postgame.

It’s interesting how, as far as I can remember, getting EQ so early in Platinum doesn’t really break the game like I’d expect it to.

There are five boulders in DP blocking the way to the stairs, with no Pokémon appearing in the boulder room. Platinum removed the boulders, leading to early access to both Gible and, more interestingly, TM26 Earthquake.

Since DP locked both behind getting your sixth badge and enabling Strength, Gible needed to be raised ~20 levels to catch up with your team if you wanted to use it before postgame.

It’s interesting how, as far as I can remember, getting EQ so early in Platinum doesn’t really break the game like I’d expect it to.

Looks at Fantina’s team featuring all Levitating Ghost types.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Looks at Fantina’s team featuring all Levitating Ghost types.

I mean yeah. More broadly I guess you could say that, after Gardenia, Ground-type Pokémon/attacks are generally more effective against the Gym Leaders that I’d consider less threatening to most teams (Maylene, Byron, Volkner) and less effective against the Leaders with stronger/more varied/haxier rosters relative to your available options (Fantina, Wake, Candice).

Plus Ground doesn’t match up super well against Team Galactic, overall (Zubat and Bronzor lines are immune, as are most of the Pokémon on Cyrus’ teams throughout the game).

 

[Kurona]

Earthquake in my experience instead tended to be something that just made Gligar and potentially other Ground-types a lot more busted and viable themselves. Gligar in addition to fairly early evolution (just needs to get to Veilstone) also gets its best STAB move immediately and is a defensive powerhouse despite a couple shaky matchups and Wake.

 

[Yung Dramps]

I think it's pretty neat when sometimes major NPCs have signature Pokemon not from their home region. When done sparingly it helps them stand out a little more and makes the world of Pokemon feel a bit more "international" to speak. A good example of this is Oleana's Garbodor, also Faba's Hypno

 

[Codraroll]

One little detail from Pokémon Go that I really like: Whenever a Nosepass spawns, it will orient itself with the nose pointing north.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Agatha is so cool.

 

[DreamPrince]

Agatha is so cool.

View attachment 267710

What's so cool about that?

 

[DrPumpkinz]

What's so cool about that?

I've realized recently that Agatha is among my favorite characters in Pokemon. Besides the fact that her ace is also one of my favorite Pokemon, she's a really fun character in her own right. Her dialogue (at least in the three mainline games she appears in; Bulbapedia doesn't have quotes from Masters) paints her as a skilled battler with decades of experience, and a sly pseudo-mentor who treats her league battles as chances to test young challengers. Her history with Oak is also pretty interesting, as it gives her a connection to the rest of the world that Elite 4 members often lack, and it further characterizes her as someone who puts high value in competitive edge and battle prowess, as well as an experienced old lady who probably has a lot of cool stories to tell (kinda like my grandfather, who had wonderful stories of world travel and advertising). Also, compared to the other members of the Indigo League, her dialogue sounds like something an actual person would say outside of exaggerated trash talk.

Lorelei: "I am a master of ice! Prepare to be frozen solid!"
Bruno: "Me and my posse are gym bros and/or Dragon Ball characters! Prepare to lose to our superior might!"
Lance: "Yo, dragons are fucking awesome! Prepare to lose!"
Agatha: "I heard Oak has been teaching you how to play Pokemon. Bah! That old duff used to be a hunk, but then he became a nerd and went soft. Let me teach you how to really play Pokemon!"

Two more things to note about her dialogue.
1) Duff is an old slang word for butt, which makes her nickname for Oak ("that old duff") ten times funnier.
2) While the other three express anger and disbelief over being defeated, Agatha's just thrilled that you've got the sauce.

Dialogue isn't the only thing she has going for her, though. Her visual design is also great.

Her more realistic design that she uses in FRLG, Masters, and the show is simple, but effective. Her smirk and glare are pretty standard anime fare, but in this specific context, they mesh perfectly with her dialogue to further characterize her as a crafty old witch who gives you a feeling like she's secretly testing your character, but you have no idea what her tests actually are even though you seem to be passing. I like to imagine that she does this constantly, and only ever makes it obvious what she's testing when she battles someone. Like, you'd catch her staring at you with that same expression at the grocery store or something, and start trying to figure out what you did to impress this witch when all you were doing was buying pasta and cranberry juice.

As great as her realistic design is, I tend to prefer the exaggeration afforded by cartoonish art styles. Thankfully, her more cartoonish depiction in Let's Go and Pokemon Adventures delivers. Giving Agatha a hunch and trading her smirk for a toothy grin really plays up her craftiness and witchiness (and also makes her look like a Gengar). Everything I said in the previous paragraph still applies, but now it feels even creepier when you see her in the grocery store. Also apparently the Kanto Elite 4 is evil in Adventures? Sure, I'll take it. I do love me a scheming villain, and she was already giving me Palpatine vibes.

One more bit of Agatha being awesome: her depiction in Pokemon Generations.

Agatha tests Blue by mockingly comparing him to Professor Oak, and when Blue get mad at the comparison (as opposed to her mocking Professor Oak), she gets excited. Blue passed her test with flying colors. He's got the sauce.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Sorry to just post two images in a row, but

grain

(this is from the credits of Twilight Wings episode 7)

 

[R_N]

tag yourself im DR MOVIE

 

[Kurona]

“Stella Road” is an unironically awesome name

 

[Pikachu315111]

tag yourself im DR MOVIE

Some of these names are animation studios.

• I found a wikipedia page for DR Movie.
• Anyone familiar with the production of the normal anime will know who OLM is.
• Hybrid Labo annoyingly pulls up a lot of Nintendo Labo stuff but I did find their Twitter and one of their recent posts is a retweet of the final Twilight Wings episode.
• Only thing I can find on Akatsuki & Phoenix Animation Holding is this Anime News Network listing of other shows they helped with (I also found one for Hybrid Labo though I then found their Twitter which I felt was a better source).
• However I was unable to find anything for "Staron", "studio daisy", and "grain".

 

[Yung Dramps]

The fact this video exists

 

[Pikachu315111]

The fact this video exists

So someone took Hop's model and animated him to a song remix of one of Alex Jones' crazy rants?

Don't want to turn this into a whole "look what this Youtuber did!" since the thread could easily become flooded, but if I were to throw out one:

Because annoying Bede never gets old

 

[Yung Dramps]

So today I wanna talk about the most mechanically interesting, well-developed cross-gen evolutionary family in the series

As many of you likely already know Scyther has the unique distinction of being the only Pokemon that maintains the exact same BST as it evolves. Both it and Scizor have a total of 500, just spread differently between the two Pokemon.

But that's not the interesting part to me. No, the cool part is how they're able to make these two Pokemon have their own unique in-battle quirks via how these stats and other factors behind them are arranged. Stat-wise Scyther is much more of a "glass cannon" relative to the bulkier bruiser that is Scizor with much higher speed and lower all-around bulk. Their secondary types are tailored to these roles, with Scyther's Flying type giving it a more offensively viable secondary STAB at the major cost of the defensive utility Bug/Steel allots his older brother.

But perhaps the coolest the thing about these two Pokemon is how they make majorly different use of two tools they both share: Technician and U-Turn. We all know how Scizor operates: Technician is the driving force behind its iconic and incredibly lethal Bullet Punches which have given it a great form of speed control. Meanwhile, its U-turn let it both profit off of forced switches, typically a relatively slow pivot at that with its average Speed stat. Scyther, on the other hand, is a different story. Without access to Bullet Punch for a long while its greatest move for use with Technician was Aerial Ace, boosting it to a fairly powerful 90 BP Flying STAB which while lacking priority is on paper more efficient and spammable due to its superior all-around coverage to Steel attacks. Then Gen 8 came around and gave it an even more powerful technique to continue this principle with: Dual Wingbeat, a move which after Technician's boost shoots up to 120 BP, the equivalent of Brave Bird with 90 accuracy in exchange for no recoil. More than ever before Scyther can now fully realize the aforementioned "glass cannon" role with this pretty nuclear attack which surpasses any individual move that Scizor could ever muster.

Proof

252 Atk Scizor Iron Head vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mew: 132-156 (38.7 - 45.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Technician Scizor Bug Bite vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Manaphy: 148-175 (43.4 - 51.3%) -- 6.6% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Technician Scyther Dual Wingbeat (2 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mew: 176-210 (51.6 - 61.5%) -- approx. 2HKO

As for U-Turn, Scyther is much more adept at spamming the move hit-and-run style against offensive teams with its superior Speed, a strat it may often resort to since its typing can't carve out as many set-up opportunities. Even their designs and lore reflect their individual talents, Scizor as the almost robotic warrior with less mobility but more control over its powerful pincers while the more natural, wild-looking Scyther flies through the wilds at top speed, slashing at anything that moves with its bladed arms.

Now of course, the obvious retort to all this is that this wasn't the original intent. Pretty much everything I mentioned here from U-Turn to Technician to Dual Wingbeat, Bullet Punch and even Aerial Ace didn't exist in Gen 1 or with the advent of Scizor in Gen 2. On the other hand the stat distributions and the roles they suggested which I mentioned at the very beginning of this post have stayed true since the second generation. In my view what has happened is that from the beginning this family was always visualized as representing different forms of offense, one more fast and furious and the other more bulky and methodical, and throughout the years all these tools have been introduced to directly and indirectly expand and further distinguish the two bug brothers, all the way up to the modern day with Dual Wingbeat and Heavy Duty Boots letting Scyther fly higher and strike harder. And that's extremely cool.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

So today I wanna talk about the most mechanically interesting, well-developed cross-gen evolutionary family in the series

As many of you likely already know Scyther has the unique distinction of being the only Pokemon that maintains the exact same BST as it evolves. Both it and Scizor have a total of 500, just spread differently between the two Pokemon.

But that's not the interesting part to me. No, the cool part is how they're able to make these two Pokemon have their own unique in-battle quirks via how these stats and other factors behind them are arranged. Stat-wise Scyther is much more of a "glass cannon" relative to the bulkier bruiser that is Scizor with much higher speed and lower all-around bulk. Their secondary types are tailored to these roles, with Scyther's Flying type giving it a more offensively viable secondary STAB at the major cost of the defensive utility Bug/Steel allots his older brother.

But perhaps the coolest the thing about these two Pokemon is how they make majorly different use of two tools they both share: Technician and U-Turn. We all know how Scizor operates: Technician is the driving force behind its iconic and incredibly lethal Bullet Punches which have given it a great form of speed control. Meanwhile, its U-turn let it both profit off of forced switches, typically a relatively slow pivot at that with its average Speed stat. Scyther, on the other hand, is a different story. Without access to Bullet Punch for a long while its greatest move for use with Technician was Aerial Ace, boosting it to a fairly powerful 90 BP Flying STAB which while lacking priority is on paper more efficient and spammable due to its superior all-around coverage to Steel attacks. Then Gen 8 came around and gave it an even more powerful technique to continue this principle with: Dual Wingbeat, a move which after Technician's boost shoots up to 120 BP, the equivalent of Brave Bird with 90 accuracy in exchange for no recoil. More than ever before Scyther can now fully realize the aforementioned "glass cannon" role with this pretty nuclear attack which surpasses any individual move that Scizor could ever muster.

Proof

252 Atk Scizor Iron Head vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mew: 132-156 (38.7 - 45.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Technician Scizor Bug Bite vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Manaphy: 148-175 (43.4 - 51.3%) -- 6.6% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Technician Scyther Dual Wingbeat (2 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mew: 176-210 (51.6 - 61.5%) -- approx. 2HKO

As for U-Turn, Scyther is much more adept at spamming the move hit-and-run style against offensive teams with its superior Speed, a strat it may often resort to since its typing can't carve out as many set-up opportunities. Even their designs and lore reflect their individual talents, Scizor as the almost robotic warrior with less mobility but more control over its powerful pincers while the more natural, wild-looking Scyther flies through the wilds at top speed, slashing at anything that moves with its bladed arms.

Now of course, the obvious retort to all this is that this wasn't the original intent. Pretty much everything I mentioned here from U-Turn to Technician to Dual Wingbeat, Bullet Punch and even Aerial Ace didn't exist in Gen 1 or with the advent of Scizor in Gen 2. On the other hand the stat distributions and the roles they suggested which I mentioned at the very beginning of this post have stayed true since the second generation. In my view what has happened is that from the beginning this family was always visualized as representing different forms of offense, one more fast and furious and the other more bulky and methodical, and throughout the years all these tools have been introduced to directly and indirectly expand and further distinguish the two bug brothers, all the way up to the modern day with Dual Wingbeat and Heavy Duty Boots letting Scyther fly higher and strike harder. And that's extremely cool.

Now that Scyther hits incredibly hard with Dual Wingbeat, the mantids are one of only four (off the top of my head) families where a prevo both plays completely differently and is also about on par with its evolution, the others being Porygon2 / Porygon-Z, Corsola / Cusola, and Dusclops / Dusknoir (Poltergeist finally lets that base 100 Attack shine).

Besides them just looking badass, I think the consistent BST was part of the reason these two were my original favorite Pokemon. I remember pretending to be them when I was really little, and I would evolve and devolve at will, basically treating them as two forms of a single Pokemon like Castform or Deoxys.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Saw this on James Turner's twitter. GameFreak as a whole may not remember the Colosseum games, but nice to see some staff do: