Little things you like about Pokémon

[The Mind Electric]

The first time I played that game I assumed we were meant to think it was N saying that. Seems a bit out of character for him, but maybe he was just really excited...?

I remember hearing somewhere that it's meant to be the dragon roaring but it got horribly mistranslated. Not sure if there's any truth to that, but I like to imagine that there is because it's really funny.

 

[ttr]

I like how Dawn/ Lucas's official art for Platinum shows them both holding Repeat Balls, pretty funny imo to choose the main characters to hold them for Platinum.

art:

Oh also I really like how Eternatus and Glastrier/Spectrier were not officially shown before the games/dlc was released. It honestly adds a lot to the surprise factor to the game when the legendary you need to fight to progress through the story are not shown in your face pre release. Thinking back I don't think i knew Eternatus was even a thing when I first played Sw/Sh, so I was actually digging the climax battle versus Eternatus a little bit more since it was showing something new, rather than just fighting the cover legendary. I mean you have to go back pretty far to not have a pokemon story that does not end up with you in fighting the cover legendary at the climax of the main story (Johto i think?) so Sw/Sh going "lmao heres something completely out of the blue" makes the climax stand out a little more. Similarly, Glastrier/Spectrier are there in the Crown Tundra, but I don't think any official pre release content showed them off, they were just there for players to find.

I like this style a lot better to be honest, it adds a little mystery to make me want to play the games to see the reveals for myself. Pokemon Legends: Arceus has not shown Arceus in game, and i think it's a lot better for not showing it. I know its part of the game because its in its name, but I have no clue as to what it is doing there. I get to find out whats going on for myself. I like this a lot better than something like ORAS which went "lol here's Mega Rayquaza" like a month and a half before the game even released. why?? they just showed off everything in the game before the game even released! Ill take their marketing style with Sw/Sh and beyond any day since there is something for me to find in the games, rather than leaving nothing for me to find.

 

[R_N]

Yeah Eternatus was an interesting surprise. In retrospect you can really tell they were already thinking of doing something other than the "third version" by having the "third legendary" as the actual climax.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

I like this style a lot better to be honest, it adds a little mystery to make me want to play the games to see the reveals for myself. Pokemon Legends: Arceus has not shown Arceus in game, and i think it's a lot better for not showing it. I know its part of the game because its in its name, but I have no clue as to what it is doing there. I get to find out whats going on for myself. I like this a lot better than something like ORAS which went "lol here's Mega Rayquaza" like a month and a half before the game even released. why?? they just showed off everything in the game before the game even released! Ill take their marketing style with Sw/Sh and beyond any day since there is something for me to find in the games, rather than leaving nothing for me to find.

Not just ORAS, but also Sun and Moon. What sort of lessened SM's appeal to me was the fact that the pre-release period revealed just about every Pokemon that Gen 7 was introducing, even the important ones like the final starter evos (Decidueye, Incineroar, and Primarina) being announced before the game released. Both games fell into the pitfall of revealing everything the game had going for it before the game came out in stores.

I think Game Freak realizes the mistake they made in doing that with those games especially with Gen 8's marketing, but even back in USUM they held off on revealing Naganadel and Ultra Necrozma so many didn't have a clue those existed until USUM actually released. I don't think we even knew the names of UB-Adhesive, UB-Burst, and UB-Assembly before the game came out.

Sword and Shield's marketing of course not only held off on the likes of Eternatus and the horses being revealed beforehand, but even in the base game several cool Pokemon were not revealed before the game released. Chief among them is the evolved forms of the starters. Unlike with SM, Rillaboom, Cinderace, and Inteleon were not officially revealed until after Sword and Shield came out, which I'm sure gave plenty of people room to find out for themselves what Grookey, Scorbunny, and Sobble would end up evolving into (whereas with Rowlet, Litten, and Popplio, everyone already knew). Other cool mons like Toxtricity and the Gen 8 pseudo-legendary Dragapult were also kept hidden from the masses until well after the games released and people finding out for themselves that they existed added to their appeal, I'm sure. Even several new evolutions/regional forms were kept hidden for people to discover: Runerigus, Cursola, Galarian Darmanitan, Mr. Rime, etc. That's also pretty neat.

I'm pretty glad Legends: Arceus and to an extent BDSP seem to be continuing this style of marketing, this hopefully means that there's plenty more for people to discover on their own with Legends: Arceus. Not just with Arceus itself, but with the prospect of new regional forms and evolutions there may be many we don't know about yet. There's tons of speculation about whether Rowlet, Cyndaquil, and Oshawott's evolved forms will receive Hisuian forms or if they will become new Pokemon altogether. No one knows yet. We don't even know if the lake guardians and the creation trio will show up in the game and if so, what role they will play. There's so much room for people to discover stuff on their own. BDSP on the other hand probably doesn't have much more to reveal at this point, but they haven't showcased the starters' final forms in marketing thus far, and even though most of us veteran players know who Torterra, Infernape, and Empoleon are already the new kids who are experiencing Sinnoh for the first time with hopefully will get to see them for themselves and that's always a plus.

 

[Siggu]

Not just ORAS, but also Sun and Moon. What sort of lessened SM's appeal to me was the fact that the pre-release period revealed just about every Pokemon that Gen 7 was introducing, even the important ones like the final starter evos (Decidueye, Incineroar, and Primarina) being announced before the game released. Both games fell into the pitfall of revealing everything the game had going for it before the game came out in stores.

That's personally something I really liked about SM. Last thing I'd like to do is miss on a Pokémon I'd totally want to use because I didn't know it existed.

 

[Ironmage]

That's personally something I really liked about SM. Last thing I'd like to do is miss on a Pokémon I'd totally want to use because I didn't know it existed.

The funny thing is, the official prerelease info for SM was insufficient for me, and I would have hit that situation had I not been looking through the leaks for the full dex. Such is liking Dhelmise, I suppose.

 

[Chadlad50]

Did SM reveal Crabominable before the release?* I hope they did so nobody decided to use Crabrawler because it looked cool, to which it evolved into that monstrosity.

*I only started Pokemon this year so I don't know much about everything before that

 

[ttr]

Did SM reveal Crabominable before the release?* I hope they did so nobody decided to use Crabrawler because it looked cool, to which it evolved into that monstrosity.

*I only started Pokemon this year so I don't know much about everything before that

SM had a demo version released, and the demo had the entire pokedex and a ton of game information which was datamined and shown off online a little more than a month before the game officially launched. While they did not necessarily reveal all the pokemon themselves, they still left all of this in the demo for people to find (which they should have known would happen, like it did for ORAS).

Even though it's not intentional marketing, they should have known that people would look at the demo's code for anything about new pokemon and features and put some effort into deleting it if they did not want people to know about it. so yeah, no official reveal of Crabominable, but still known because of the datamine. I put a video below showing the datamine and Crabominable off if you are interested in seeing what was shown off.

datamine video

 

[DrPumpkinz]

SM had a demo version released, and the demo had the entire pokedex and a ton of game information which was datamined and shown off online a little more than a month before the game officially launched. While they did not necessarily reveal all the pokemon themselves, they still left all of this in the demo for people to find (which they should have known would happen, like it did for ORAS).

Even though it's not intentional marketing, they should have known that people would look at the demo's code for anything about new pokemon and features and put some effort into deleting it if they did not want people to know about it. so yeah, no official reveal of Crabominable, but still known because of the datamine. I put a video below showing the datamine and Crabominable off if you are interested in seeing what was shown off.

datamine video

Game Freak did actually try to prevent this from happening. If I remember correctly, the actual data (types, movepools, names, models, etc) for everything was dummied out. They just forgot to scrub the Pokedex sprites.

 

[Siggu]

Game Freak did actually try to prevent this from happening. If I remember correctly, the actual data (types, movepools, names, models, etc) for everything was dummied out. They just forgot to scrub the Pokedex sprites.

Yeah, I remember that, too. Every Pokémon's data (sans the Dex sprites) was replaced with Pikachu's.

 

[Chadlad50]

Game Freak did actually try to prevent this from happening. If I remember correctly, the actual data (types, movepools, names, models, etc) for everything was dummied out. They just forgot to scrub the Pokedex sprites.

I feel like that'd be the most important thing to scrub, no? I mean unless it was done purposely to try and drum up hype for the new Pokemon, which is plausible.

 

[R_N]

I feel like that'd be the most important thing to scrub, no? I mean unless it was done purposely to try and drum up hype for the new Pokemon, which is plausible.

It's not even remotely plausible it was done on purpose otherwise they wouldn't have bothered scrubbing anything to begin with.

I think it was just a big oversight on their part. You go through all the work of preparing the demo and cleaning out just about everything, but something slips by and no one catches it. Probably not helped by the pokedex images being something new to the game; previous pokedexes just use the sprites or models already made rather than a specific set of new images.
Could easily see just a general brain fart about it, see also the various "battle introduction" backgrounds which are generally nothing to write home about but kind of were this go around. Kukui also had his champion battle intro animation still tied to his model (though we had no context for when it'd play).

 

[Pikachu315111]

thanks disembodied reggae space voice

seriously is it the same voice as

Also:

Good idea omnipresent narrator!

The first time I played that game I assumed we were meant to think it was N saying that. Seems a bit out of character for him, but maybe he was just really excited...?

I always assumed it was a random grunt cause they say silly things like that.

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

-snip-

Late reply, but thanks for the explanations! Especially for why the creation trio were fighting in the movies, that made way more sense than I had expected.

Sword and Shield's marketing of course not only held off on the likes of Eternatus and the horses being revealed beforehand, but even in the base game several cool Pokemon were not revealed before the game released. Chief among them is the evolved forms of the starters. Unlike with SM, Rillaboom, Cinderace, and Inteleon were not officially revealed until after Sword and Shield came out, which I'm sure gave plenty of people room to find out for themselves what Grookey, Scorbunny, and Sobble would end up evolving into (whereas with Rowlet, Litten, and Popplio, everyone already knew). Other cool mons like Toxtricity and the Gen 8 pseudo-legendary Dragapult were also kept hidden from the masses until well after the games released and people finding out for themselves that they existed added to their appeal, I'm sure. Even several new evolutions/regional forms were kept hidden for people to discover: Runerigus, Cursola, Galarian Darmanitan, Mr. Rime, etc. That's also pretty neat.

This was something I liked a lot. I was a bit disappointed with how they showed pretty much everything during the pre-release period for S/M. I looked at almost all of it, so there was very little left to discover once I played the games. I definitely prefer the approach they had with S/S. But my approach for S/S was different as well. Since I expected them to repeat how they had handled things for S/M, I took a break from Pokémon news and forums during the last three months of the pre-release period, so I got to see even less than most other fans. But even so, I think I made the right decision. When I played Sword, I loved seeing the new Pokémon for the first time, and seeing new evolutions as well. I had not expected my energetic little Scorbunny to become a football player when it got fully evolved! Nor had I expected regional variants for Pokémon from anywhere outside of Gen 1. Or regional evolutions, for that matter. Playing through Sword 90% blind was a great decision and I am definitely going to do the same thing for Gen 9 once it is time for that.

Now, on to other things.

I like how in the Gen 3 main games, as well as in Colosseum, XD and PBR, Return and Frustration has different animations depending on the Friendship level of the Pokémon that uses them. I think this is really cool. I remember that when I played Gen 3, I often taught Return to Pokémon whose Friendship level I was trying to raise. It was one way to see how friendly they were towards me. When the animation changed, I knew that their Friendship level had increased!

I like how in some side-games like Go and Home, the background for a Pokémon looks different depending on its primary type. All types have a very suitable background. Really cool little detail, I like it a lot.

Next, I want to give some praise to one of my favorite rivals. Said character also happens to be my newest favorite rival.

I really like Klara. Everything about her is just so great. I think she is the first jerk rival in the series who is done right. It only took 24 years, but Game Freak finally succeeded with this concept. I was never a big fan of Blue or Silver, and while I think Bede is okay, he could have been better. But I think they absolutely nailed it with Klara.

Her personality is bad, but in a positive way. At first, she’s mean, toxic and manipulative. She tries to prevent you from getting into the Master Dojo while she is doing her best to accomplish her own goals. She is cute on the outside and toxic on the inside, as one person described her. She’s also not just a jerk for the sake of it. Her backstory, mostly revealed through her league cards, explains some interesting things about her. She really wants to get famous, and she will do anything to get there. Even if it means she has to be mean to other people.

I think Klara is the first jerk rival in the series with really good character development. Her character and story arc are both very well executed. I really appreciate this since the previous three jerk rivals failed in this aspect. Klara changes into being more kind throughout the story. Towards the end, she isn’t as mean as she was in the beginning. Such as when you team up with her at the Galarian Star Tournament.

She admits that she didn’t like you at first, but at this point, her mind has changed. She also gets to be a Gym Leader towards the end, which is cool. Even if it is just in the minor division, it is better than nothing!

I also thought that it felt very satisfying to beat her in battle. I guess this is because of how she reacts after losing, because she actually admits defeat, and because of her personality.

She seems to have some issues though, even outside of losing to the player every time she battles you. One notable thing is that she presses the button on her Poké Ball very hard. I have seen two theories about why: she is either very stressed and uses it as a stress toy, or she is threatening her Pokémon out of sheer anger, since they will get to pay for it if she loses. Personally, I think that the former makes the most sense. Another notable thing is that she changes her expression when throwing a Poké Ball, both regarding a regular throw and when she Dynamaxes.

She makes a cute smile at first, then she changes her expression immediately afterwards into a bit more angry/frustrated frown. A neat detail.

Her reactions during battle are great too. She gets shocked when you hit her Pokémon with a Super Effective move, and she claims to be both cute and clever when she does the same thing towards you. Overall, she shows a lot of personality, which I really like. She is an “odd Ducklett” as Honey describes her at one point.

My favorite moment with Klara in the story was when she cheated during the final trial battle by putting Toxic Spikes on the field before the battle started. That was just so perfect. She says the battle is going to be “fair and square”, but directly afterwards, she warns you that the Toxic Spikes got on your side of the battlefield, “somehow”. Then she admits that she cheated once the battle is over.

A great way for her to be a jerk, though you could also use that to turn the tides against her. I had an Obstagoon with Guts and Facade on my team, bet she hadn’t expected that! Personally, I did not know about it either, so it was just a fun bonus.

The face of a cheater.

Design-wise, there are some notable things about her too. The back of her headband looks similar to the wings of a Dustox. Which led many people into thinking there would be a Galarian Dustox, but no. Even worse, Dustox and the entire Wurmple line is still dexited. Klara also has pink nail-polish, which goes well with her hair. Pink hair is cute. And yes, I think Klara is cute on the whole as well. I like cute girls, at least as long as they aren't mean.

There’s also a t-shirt with her image, which you can obtain and wear in the games.

I had forgotten about it until doing some research for this post. I guess I must have gotten it while playing, then completely forgotten about it and decided to not use it, sticking to my regular setup instead. Maybe I should change to it the next time I play Sword.

As if all of this wasn’t enough, Klara can be rebattled once a day after clearing the Isle of Armor. It gives you an extra training spot, which is always appreciated. Her battle theme is pretty good too, not my favorite but still great. I think it suits her very well.

Klara also gives a perfect summary of how I feel about Pokémon, the fandom and the forums right now:

Third time I’m posting it here on the forums… I think it might be one of my favorite quotes from Pokémon.

I haven’t played Shield and I probably never will, so I don’t know how Avery is. But I hope he is just as great as Klara.

So yeah, Klara is one of my favorite rivals. Along with Wally, Barry, Bianca, Cheren, N, Hugh, Hau, Gladion, Hop and Marnie. Those are my top 11 favorite rivals. Klara is definitely in my top 5 though, maybe even top 3.

Looking back now, there are many rivals I like. Especially from Gen 3 and on. I think rivals in the Pokémon games had a rather rough start, but they have been really great in the modern generations for the most part.

I should say that some of the images above are screenshots taken by me from a video by Mixeli. The image of the t-shirt is from Serebii, the rest of the images were taken by me on my Switch.

Next, let’s talk about regional variants. I have given a lot of praise to the Galarian forms and evolutions in the past, but I figured I should say something about the Alolan forms too. While I don’t like all of them, I can at least talk about the ones I like. My 5 favorites and 6 others, 11 in total.


I really like how Raichu got an Alolan form. Raichu is really underappreciated and mostly overshadowed by Pikachu, so I am very happy that it finally got some well-deserved love. It is super cute as well! I like it a lot, one of my 5 favorites.


Regular Sandshrew is okay, but Alolan Sandshrew is great. The pattern on the back of its body looks like an igloo, neat reference. Sandslash was one of my favorite Pokémon as a kid, so I’m glad they gave it a bit of attention in the form of an Alolan form to make it more relevant. I think the icy spikes on its back and the color scheme makes it look really cool (pun intended). It is another of my 5 favorites.


Regular Vulpix is one of the few cute Pokémon from Gen 1, and Alolan Vulpix kept that cuteness. I like how it is white, that makes sense since it lives in the snow. I think regular Ninetales is okay, but Alolan Ninetales is a lot better. It looks so elegant, and it is among my 5 favorites as well.


Despite loving cats, I have never cared much for regular Meowth. But I really like Alolan Meowth. It looks so smug, as if it is about to steal your valuables when you aren’t looking. I like it a lot.


There are many ways to take a boring old Kanto Pokémon and make it interesting. Giving it a beard is one way. Giving it a cannon on its back is another. But what would happen if you gave it both? It would be epic! I think you should understand now why I like Alolan Golem. Everything about it is awesome. It is another of my 5 favorites.


Regular Grimer and Muk are among the group of boring old Kanto Pokémon which I wouldn’t mind if they got perma-dexited for all eternity forward. Or at least I used to think so. Now, because of their Alolan forms, I think they can stay. Or at least their Alolan forms should stay. Those are a lot more interesting compared to the regular forms. The colors are nicer, and I like how they got “teeth” (and shards on Muk’s body) in the form of crystallized poison, really nice.


Certain Pokémon can be very silly. They can either be silly in a bad way, or silly in a good way. Alolan Exeggutor falls in the latter category, thankfully. It is pretty weird but also funny, and the concept makes sense. I like it a lot. It also feels like it is one of the few really tall Pokémon that gets scaled correctly in the games, which is cool. Too bad it doesn’t happen for all of the others as well…


I think regular Marowak is cool, but it has always been underappreciated. Thankfully, it got an awesome Alolan form to make up for that. Having a burning bone is so cool! I also think the darker color scheme and the black marking on its forehead makes it stand out a bit more compared to regular Marowak. It is the final one from my 5 favorites.

Here’s how I rank all of the Alolan forms:

Favorites:
Very good:
Good:
Silly in a good way:
Decent:
Silly in a bad way:
Least favorites:

So those are my thoughts on the Alola forms, or at least on the ones I like the best. While I don’t like Alola forms as much as Galarian forms, I still think over half of them were great and I appreciate how they started the whole concept of regional variants. I am really happy that they decided to continue with the concept of regional variants in more games after Gen 7!

 

[DrPumpkinz]

My man's ready to commit crimes and take over the multiverse.

 

[Chadlad50]

-Snip-

Did I do that right? I'm still new to using forums

Anyway I liked that post and your in depth analysis of Kiara. I played Shield and I did like Avery, he's a fine character and has a good design for me. But I couldn't tell you how he stacks up compared to Kiara. Because I have a very bad memory. I think he follows some of the same story beats as Kiara. Huge dick at first, friendly rival at the end. I'd say he's more overconfident and arrogant compared to toxic like Kiara. He also does cheat I'm pretty sure, although I can't remember how.

I'd also rank the Alolan Pokemon but I don't have the energy or motivation to do all the sprite stuff so I'll just say which ones I hate and love, the rest are ones I'm fine with or forgot

Love: Raichu, Marowak, Sandsh/lash, Vulpix and Ninetails, Exeggutor
Hate: Dugtrio, Ratticate
Loathe: Persian

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

As someone who played Shield, Avery is honestly quite funny. He imbues a lot of Psychic-type move puns into his speech, like at one point he says "Avery, Teleport!" or "What a Psystrike to my poor pride", or even something like "I'm in Psyshock!", or "Use Amnesia and forget what I said". He does threaten you quite a lot by threatening to unleash his psychic powers on you at times. His schtick is that he comes from a lineage of Psychics but has always been frowned upon by his family because he's not as good with his powers as them (he can at most lift things into the air), so he's attempting to become a strong Gym Leader to prove his worth. He has more of an outward ego and is prideful yet is pretty eccentric at the same time.

His way of cheating in the third trial is to unleash Psychic Terrain onto the battlefield, which isn't quite as "toxic" as Klara's Toxic Spikes, but it's something I suppose.

 

[Chadlad50]

As someone who played Shield, Avery is honestly quite funny. He imbues a lot of Psychic-type move puns into his speech, like at one point he says "Avery, Teleport!" or "What a Psystrike to my poor pride", or even something like "I'm in Psyshock!", or "Use Amnesia and forget what I said". He does threaten you quite a lot by threatening to unleash his psychic powers on you at times. His schtick is that he comes from a lineage of Psychics but has always been frowned upon by his family because he's not as good with his powers as them (he can at most lift things into the air), so he's attempting to become a strong Gym Leader to prove his worth. He has more of an outward ego and is prideful yet is pretty eccentric at the same time.

His way of cheating in the third trial is to unleash Psychic Terrain onto the battlefield, which isn't quite as "toxic" as Klara's Toxic Spikes, but it's something I suppose.

I think he also references Future Sight in the Galar Cup when you beat him.

Setting up Terrain is kinda lame, you can definitely tell they came up with Kiara's cheat first

 

[Pikachu315111]

Anyway I liked that post and your in depth analysis of Kiara. I played Shield and I did like Avery, he's a fine character and has a good design for me. But I couldn't tell you how he stacks up compared to Kiara. Because I have a very bad memory. I think he follows some of the same story beats as Kiara. Huge dick at first, friendly rival at the end. I'd say he's more overconfident and arrogant compared to toxic like Kiara. He also does cheat I'm pretty sure, although I can't remember how.

Yup, Avery follows pretty much the same beats as Klara though has his own reasons and hang-ups which you learn reading their League Cards (both common and rare). A quick summary:

• Klara wants to be a pop star. While she received positive reviews from critics, when she tried selling her first CD she only sold a few copies. Feeling she needed publicity, she decided to join a Gym to become a Gym Leader, but this is where her hang-up comes in: she's lazy. Though talented, she doesn't like working hard. She decided to join the Poison-type Gym because there wasn't a lot of competition... but quit after a few days because it was too much work. As she sat around at home, her Slowpoke accidentally turned on the TV which had a commercial for Mustard's Dojo. She talked with Mustard over the phone and, it not sounding so work intensive, joined up. She became a top student however usually has others do her work for her... and then one day she was told to meet a new student.
• Avery was born into a family of Psychic-type Gym Leaders. While he has powerful telekinesis, he doesn't exhibit any other psychic powers like teleportation or telepathy. His family looks down on him because of that resulting in his hang-up: a superiority complex. He hates being proven "inferior", he was the Gym Leader for a short while but after levitating people out of his Gym for defeating him he was kicked out. Down in the dumps, his Slowpoke came across a paper ad for Mustard's Dojo that promised to improve oneself. He decides to join and quickly became the top student as he is dedicated to his work... but he like to lord it over everyone and anyone who crosses him he still levitates away. Still, as the top student, one day he was asked to meet with a new student.

And that's where the player comes in. You can read the quotes yourselves, I provided the link above. Or you could watch a playthrough, HERE is for Sword/Klara and HERE is for Shield/Avery.

During your final battle, Avery cheats by having set up a Psychic Terrain before the battle. Of course, the funny thing about that is Avery didn't need to cheat to do that, he just needed to send out a Pokemon with the Ability Psychic Surge. So in that regard, Klara setting up two layers of Toxic Spikes does make it feel she cheated more... of course Klara's "trap" is easily done away with if you sent out a Flying, Steel, or better yet Poison-type (who absorbs the Toxic Spikes) while Avery's Psychic Terrain is a bit more difficult to get rid of and provides a power boost to his Psychic-type Pokemon's attacks (though that won't matter if you send out a Dark-type, lol).

He imbues a lot of Psychic-type move puns into his speech, like at one point he says "Avery, Teleport!" or "What a Psystrike to my poor pride", or even something like "I'm in Psyshock!", or "Use Amnesia and forget what I said".

Which is funny until you realize the reason he's probably doing it is because he can't use other psychic powers and is probably compensating by namedropping. Notably when he "teleports", he shouts it out... before running away. Even sadder is that this lack of other psychic powers makes him overlook the one he does have which is pretty powerful: his telekinesis is able to lift up another person with little effort. Had he not been hung up on not having other powers Avery could probably learn to levitate himself and just fly around, sure teleportation is cool but so is just lifting yourself off the ground and flying off (of hovering just over the floor cause walking is for people without psychic abilities).

For the record I like Avery a bit more than Klara as I feel his hang-up would naturally lead him to being antagonistic toward you. Meanwhile Klara is a bit of a stretch, like sure it could happen but considering Klara likes having other people do her work for her I more see her seeing the player as another trainer for her to manipulate than someone she has to make sure doesn't join the Dojo.

 

[Hugin]

I like the early game of Pokemon Yellow. They were trying to do the anime tie-in, which limits their options(forcing you to take Pikachu when Brock has 2 ground-types). Rather than change his team or obviously cheat, they made it so a bunch of the mons* you can catch before him have some way of dealing with his team. This really pushes the player to catch /something/.

*Butterfree gets Confusion at 10, both Nidos get Double Kick at 12, and Mankey gets Low Kick at 9. The birds and Rattata are the only ones who don't, and the birds can still abuse stat-affecting moves.

 

[Chadlad50]

While we're talking about the Armor rivals, I just noticed in my rematch against Avery that he also references Pokemon Natures, such as when you land a Super effective hit. He says something like: "S-supereffective? Your Nature certainly isn't Calm, is it?" with Nature and Calm capitalized. I thought that was neat. I wonder if he references them more?

 

[Worldie]

While we're talking about the Armor rivals, I just noticed in my rematch against Avery that he also references Pokemon Natures, such as when you land a Super effective hit. He says something like: "S-supereffective? Your Nature certainly isn't Calm, is it?" with Nature and Calm capitalized. I thought that was neat. I wonder if he references them more?

Kukui also did a lot of these references in gen 7. Avery as well makes a lot of them, as well as various random NPCs every so often.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Speaking of Natures, I think it's neat how most of the Natures which have opposite effects are antonyms of one another. Some that stick out to me are:

Hasty/Relaxed
Lonely/Bold
Timid/Brave
Quiet/Jolly
Rash/Careful
Naughty/Calm
Impish/Mild

Some of the others are less obvious. I'm not sure quite how Naive and Sassy are distinct, or how Gentle and Lax are meant to contrast; if anything you'd expect the counterpoint of Lax to be Careful, and Rash to contrast with Gentle, with the opposite of Sassy being Docile or Demure and the opposite of Naive to be Calm or Sensible. I've no idea what the original Japanese terms are so maybe they got shifted around. Similarly, I'd have gone with "confident" or "aggressive" rather than Adamant to contrast with Modest but it just about fits if you squint.

The neutral natures are - obviously - more neutral. They all sort of play off one another - Serious and Docile contrast with Quirky, Hardy contrasts with Docile and Bashful, Bashful is the reverse of Quirky and Serious, and so on.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Disembodied Reggae Space Voice: The Sequel: The Movie: The Game:

seriously this pops up a lot when you stop and think about it

 

[The Mind Electric]

Disembodied Reggae Space Voice: The Sequel: The Movie: The Game:

View attachment 374934
seriously this pops up a lot when you stop and think about it

New headcanon: All of these are the disembodied voice of the region's professor talking to you. I mean, if he has the time to constantly be watching you and stop you from using your bike indoors, he has the time to tell you things like this.