Little things you like about Pokémon

I just remembered what an absolute banger "Advance Adventure" is, and I always thought it was cute that May (Haruka) appears right as the singer sings "haruka". The full line is "haruka kanata, umi no mukou no" (far away, beyond the sea), and one of her rivals is called Kanata. (I'm not into the anime anymore; I just like the Japanese openings a lot.)
 

Ransei

Garde Mystik
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Take this as grand if you want but Arceus's character is quite fascinating and very well-executed.

To start off, when you beat Arceus in the game, it says this:

Arceus said:
"Thou hast done well to seek out all Pokémon. Unflagging devotion to a goal shalt see it through... So hast thou proven by thine actions. Much as that ancient hero once did. He and the Pokémon that walked beside him. To see such truths proven anew, beyond the bounds of time and space, bringeth joy to me. I am glad that I chose thee to call to this world. As thou walkest onward upon thine own path... Upon thee...and upon this creation where thou now dwellest... I bestow my blessing. And I bestow upon thee a part of myself. I would walk this world together with thee. Show me how it appeareth in thine eyes."
Notice how Arceus never mentions any significant part of the plot or the plot's characters. Arceus never said it needed help nor thanked you for taking care of the mess Volo created. Not even during the beginning of the game. All Arceus said implies it just wanted to watch another person share a meaningful bond with Pokémon by going through an epic adventure with them. Arceus then flexes by revealing that the what we've seen, known and loved of it all this time, was just a piece of its real identity. The Pokémon is just Arceus's avatar, which it can re-create an indefinite number of times. Arceus chose to be identified by all as a Pokémon despite it being far beyond such. With this in mind I've also realized one more thing - Volo stood no chance of fulfilling his goal this whole time... He was done for from the very beginning. We've seen Arceus deal with all 3 members of the creation trio simultaneously and effortlessly close a space-time rift in previous media before anyway. Arceus has also confirmed itself to be a full on god and the pixie plate mentions how its true self is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Arceus was simply trying to be creative with how it wanted to handle Volo. As for why it specifically chose you? It knows the reason more than any player.

Afterwards (with the main Daybreak Update requests completed), you walk to Jubilife Village and are introduced to a "Battle Facility" hosted by... Arceus! This was a little shocking at first but then I realized, this is how the Pokémon multiverse was built. For Arceus to go into a random "frenzy", mention how glad it was to see you have an epic adventure, one consisting of all Pokémon and lots of battling, then host an entire eternal battle challenge on its own accord, Arceus must be a huge fan of Pokémon battling. In addition, Arceus will accept frenzied rematches any time after it is beaten the first time. If the God of all Pokémon is a huge fan of battling, this could easily reflect why Pokémon battles are the main thing and why Arceus chose to identify itself as a Pokémon. It probably gave itself its own typing, ability, stat distribution, and movepool to best work with, while not wanting to make its avatar impossible to defeat as it would have been boring.

Last thing I want to mention is how what you do in Legends Arceus affects if the Azure Flute event occurs in BDSP. If you fulfill the task given to you by Arceus, you will not only be rewarded with a piece of itself in Legends Arceus. Arceus is kind enough to also reward your descendent in BDSP with a piece of itself! This is presumably a different piece since you are able to legitimately shiny hunt it for the first time ever in Pokémon. It's a worthwhile event with a tedious but very fitting requirement for Arceus. It is the all-encompassing god of Pokémon and is the mightiest in the series. Getting it in main series should not be easy at all.
 
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:ss/mr-mime:

Mr. Mime learns only four sound moves: Confide, Round, Snore, and Uproar. The former three are universal TMs, while Uproar is a universal tutor for baby Pokemon (which Mr. Mime evolves from).

It would have been so easy to give Mr. Mime moves like Hyper Voice, Disarming Voice, or Sing, but they didn't, because it's a mime. Mimes famously don't make sound when performing.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
hello yes let's discuss the best gym redesign

1652777878443.png
1652777884282.png

Hmm. Yeah, not too great. Quite bland, actually. But hey, it's whatever. First gyms are first gyms, can't win em all.

1652777933872.png

Now this? THIS IS THAT GOOD QUALITY JUICE MMMMM. It preserves the same function from a map design but like... the substantially boosted visual spectacle speaks for itself. It's not just rhymeless flair either - it's specifically a museum, a place of learning that fits Roxanne being an honors student.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
Are...are we stanning ORAS to shit on BDSP, or do we actually like ORAS now?

Because if the latter, good job on the fandom finally abandoning "Gen V was the ABSOLUTE PEAK and everything after is complete trash, no exceptions".
A bit of both. BDSP shitting the bed has (hopefully) finally made people realize how badly we took ORAS for granted and how petty the complaints were in hindsight. Speaking as a fan of the game for a while now (I came around on it well before the Sinnoh revisit was even announced) I'm sad that's what it took but I'm not complaining lol
 
As someone who dislikes both Z-moves and Dynamaxing and waited for a Sinnoh remake, I felt like the Sinnoh starter trio somehow dodged two bullets and got the best result in getting a moveset revamp in Legends Arceus that hopefully has a better chance of sticking around in future generations. While Torterra doesn't get Shell Smash, Sleep Powder plus Headlong Rush make up for it in my opinion. Considering the Kanto and Alola trios are in Sw/Sh, there's a legitimate chance the Sinnoh starters show up in Scarlet/Violet.
 
My general thoughts on ORAS have typically been "it was dumb how the non-BF emerald changes werent also incorporated", but was an otherwise pretty solid game in its own right & a lot of the little changes or aesthetic changes were pretty neat. It just made the stuff they didnt change stand out more; HGSS & FRLG are in the same boat in that regard.


The real pulse of the community to keep an eye out for is the XY respect.

Of which

I will start

right now!

XY's always been a game I've gone back & forth on throughout the years. Even before Gen 8. Just a lot of turning it around in my mind and thinking about how it handled things. I think the current thing I've settled on is "Story very weakly paced, the post game left something to be desired, the aversion to 4-pokemon teams a mess that leads to wonky feeling alongside some weird teams, and a suite of bizarre gameplay decisions" BUT ALSO:
  • I genuinely love how it leaned on the old Pokemon to give a huge dex where just about every route has like 9 different things in it. Some discussion on what actually went into that Pokedex, but on the whole it was just a lot. When I did m ysecond run it was fun just to pick out new things, and in general it means that every route has some variety to it that other games trend towards double or tripling or qaudruplling up on (or feeling like it does)
  • I adore the Kalos Region. I think it's just very enjoyable to walk through and the routes are, to me, pretty memorable. The towns too, quite nice. And I enjoy how every cave was designed a little differently. On the whole, probably the most solid, put together region for me. I just think about various routes and have a little smile on my face
  • With EXP Share off I, despite the game's other weird difficulty wonkiness, actually got a nice bit of friction through the game. Clemont started to bear teeth at me, it was great while my friends who kept it on or were use pokemonamie were complaining about steamrolling. Its a fond memory for me specifically.
  • The Gyms had some cute visual gimmicks in particular. Valerie's dollhouse, Olympia's weird galaxy, Ramon's zelda temple, etc.
  • Here's a "I really only appreciated this in gen 8" special: I respect the amount of game they put in alongside recreating every single Pokemon in full 3D. Despite the lacking post game, it does feel like a really...full game, to me. Keep your eyes on this specific aspect, I feel certain that people will garner some retroactive respect for the games because of this. You WILL get into arguments about it and no one will be happy, but it will happen.
  • While the gameplay portion of it was...not great, the Looker plot was cool. Emma should show up again some day, imo
  • While a lot of the plot portion of it was...not great, the fact that characters continued to talk about the events of the climax after beating the game, for a fairly sizable chunk was cool. In the other games it does just feel like it, uhhhh, jsut ends, until maybe it picks up a thread in the post game (if that). Like a switch flips. But in XY they do keep referencing stuff for quite a bit. The parade celebrating our accomplishments was a fun way to end the game from usual.
e: Literally going "In conclusion XY was a land of contrasts"
 
hello yes let's discuss the best gym redesign

View attachment 425671View attachment 425672
Hmm. Yeah, not too great. Quite bland, actually. But hey, it's whatever. First gyms are first gyms, can't win em all.
It's not just a first gym, it's a first Rock gym. The layout is extremely similar to Brock's Gym, which I like as a callback. Because like you said, it's a first gym. It shouldn't be complicated.

Also, I've praised XY's dex before, but I'll do it again. Seriously, check out the Availability section of the tier list thread. I like monotype runs, and you can generally assemble most of your team by the second gym. Most games are much more limited than that early on.
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
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Oh geez I'm 10 pages behind... Gonna focus on the current discussions.

Are...are we stanning ORAS to shit on BDSP, or do we actually like ORAS now?
We're praising the good parts of ORAS which were absent from BDSP.

Note the major failure of ORAS was it doing the SAME mistake as BDSP entirely did: Sticking too close to the original even when it didn't make sense to.

For the most part I liked the changes ORAS did. It expanded the story giving both teams a deeper ideology to what they were doing and some more character to the bosses and somewhat to the admins. They did a wonderful job translating the sprite-based environments to 3D, taking plenty of artistic license to change & add things which made the environments stand out more (notably making several of the Gyms feel like they serve a function or are a visual treat instead of just a maze-like building). Instead of keeping Mauville City, the Abandoned Ship, and Mirage Island the same they updated, expanded upon, or completely changed it to something more interesting (and build lore around such as we've seen with the Mauville projects).

ORAS main failures is not really updating teams (very notable with the villain teams as that means they were stuck using the same 3 or 4 Pokemon families) and goof-ups like no Gym Leader rematches because that was something only done in Emerald. And before you think it, no, Battle Frontier isn't a factor here, though Emerald also had some other little things here and there they could have kept (also just transporting the Battle Maison wholesale felt kind of cheap).

ORAS always had good points to it, though compared to the changes that HGSS did with GSC and FRLG did with RBY it felt like a backstep. They kept the visual upgrades, though because they couldn't think a good way "around" Gen III's duality story made some odd choices concerning excluding Emerald stuff (as well as some modern things like clothing customization) that held ORAS back. That has always been the issue with ORAS, it hasn't changed.

What maybe HAS changed it people now realizing this with seeing how much WORSE it could have been with BDSP. 1:1 remake, trying to copy the original art style but with 3D models, acting like Platinum didn't exist, and pretty much trying to ignore notable innovations the past decade of Pokemon games have brought for "nostalgia" that newer fans isn't going to get and older fans would have rather left behind.

The real pulse of the community to keep an eye out for is the XY respect.

Of which

I will start

right now!

(Great points and analysis goes here)

e: Literally going "In conclusion XY was a land of contrasts"

(Note to self, on page 153)
 
My general thoughts on ORAS have typically been "it was dumb how the non-BF emerald changes werent also incorporated", but was an otherwise pretty solid game in its own right & a lot of the little changes or aesthetic changes were pretty neat. It just made the stuff they didnt change stand out more; HGSS & FRLG are in the same boat in that regard.


The real pulse of the community to keep an eye out for is the XY respect.

Of which

I will start

right now!

XY's always been a game I've gone back & forth on throughout the years. Even before Gen 8. Just a lot of turning it around in my mind and thinking about how it handled things. I think the current thing I've settled on is "Story very weakly paced, the post game left something to be desired, the aversion to 4-pokemon teams a mess that leads to wonky feeling alongside some weird teams, and a suite of bizarre gameplay decisions" BUT ALSO:
  • I genuinely love how it leaned on the old Pokemon to give a huge dex where just about every route has like 9 different things in it. Some discussion on what actually went into that Pokedex, but on the whole it was just a lot. When I did m ysecond run it was fun just to pick out new things, and in general it means that every route has some variety to it that other games trend towards double or tripling or qaudruplling up on (or feeling like it does)
  • I adore the Kalos Region. I think it's just very enjoyable to walk through and the routes are, to me, pretty memorable. The towns too, quite nice. And I enjoy how every cave was designed a little differently. On the whole, probably the most solid, put together region for me. I just think about various routes and have a little smile on my face
  • With EXP Share off I, despite the game's other weird difficulty wonkiness, actually got a nice bit of friction through the game. Clemont started to bear teeth at me, it was great while my friends who kept it on or were use pokemonamie were complaining about steamrolling. Its a fond memory for me specifically.
  • The Gyms had some cute visual gimmicks in particular. Valerie's dollhouse, Olympia's weird galaxy, Ramon's zelda temple, etc.
  • Here's a "I really only appreciated this in gen 8" special: I respect the amount of game they put in alongside recreating every single Pokemon in full 3D. Despite the lacking post game, it does feel like a really...full game, to me. Keep your eyes on this specific aspect, I feel certain that people will garner some retroactive respect for the games because of this. You WILL get into arguments about it and no one will be happy, but it will happen.
  • While the gameplay portion of it was...not great, the Looker plot was cool. Emma should show up again some day, imo
  • While a lot of the plot portion of it was...not great, the fact that characters continued to talk about the events of the climax after beating the game, for a fairly sizable chunk was cool. In the other games it does just feel like it, uhhhh, jsut ends, until maybe it picks up a thread in the post game (if that). Like a switch flips. But in XY they do keep referencing stuff for quite a bit. The parade celebrating our accomplishments was a fun way to end the game from usual.
e: Literally going "In conclusion XY was a land of contrasts"
Yeah, XY was a pretty good game. I just remember thinking it was a bit overrated when it came out compared to Black 2 White 2 because the latter game had a lot most content. However, I felt the exact same way about Black and White when it came out because I thought HGSS and Platinum had more content.

XY made a lot of good additions like making EV and IV training more accessible, Fairy-Types (though I do miss Dragon-types being OP, ngl), Mega Evolution, etc. The music in the game was pretty good, most of the Routes were pretty interesting w/ good setpieces, Hyper Training and Pokemon Amie were pretty cool additions, etc. Also the hype period when that game and Sun & Moon came out were pretty great experiences all around too. It is kind of sad though thinking that the hype cycle surround both SM and XY is pretty much something that we'll never experience again, at least online.
 
To bring a tiny bit of Competitive talk into things, something I like is how the Galarian forms of the Kanto Bird trio reflects on their usage, whether intentionally or just by happenstance.

- Galarian Articuno was made into a full-on offensively focused mon with its stat spread, leveraging decent bulk and support moves to let it establish a tricky offensive presence. Old Articuno by comparison struggled with having a defensive stat spread and move pool that played very poorly with its typing. Galarian Articuno has a slightly less impressive typing (Ice is awful defense but very nice to have STAB offense on) but otherwise has its ducks in a decent row for what its stats and movepool are trying to have it do.

- Galarian Zapdos is almost a mirror of Kanto Zapdos, being a Physically inclined mirror statwise with similar speed and sharing a lot of the high-powered equivalents for their respective types and offenses (Close Combat and Brave Bird, plus some coverage options that fit its aesthetic while affording it other types). What is especially neat to me is how their roles in competitive almost seem to be reverses as well: Zapdos with Pressure/Static, a good defensive typing, and reliance on the high innate power of its kit (and Roost) serves as something of a bulky check to offensive threats, or at least an offensive mon whose defensive profile and utility is a major part of its performance; G-Zapdos on the other hand has Defiant and a Coverage suite that makes it way more reliable at breaking down or Punishing defensive mons (Fighting/Flying smacks a lot of stuff while not relying on Hurricane accuracy, plus the higher power making it less reliant on SE hits), Defiant assisting this since it punishes Defog and Intimidate as common tactics such targets would employ (whether against it or simply things it can exploit), and a typing that helps it get around Hazards for a smack-and-run playstyle a bit better (albeit losing Paralysis immunity can be troublesome). OG Zapdos is still better but I do like how their roles look as foils to the other without invoking a case of one being "the other but better/worse" as happens with some other Regional Form mons (Alolan Raichu, OG Dugtrio, Alolan Muk, Hisuian Goodra if it translates as datamined to main-series).

- Galarian Moltres is an interesting one to me as well. Moltres, despite its offensive stats and typing, is no stranger to defensive variants in competitive even with issues like a major Stealth Rock Weakness. Galarian Moltres feels like an effort to explore that approach further rather than strong-arm Moltres back into its original's offense-intended Build. Besides debuting in the same generation that added Heavy Duty Boots as a go-to "I hate Hazards" item, the Dark/Flying type is a very good one for the shift from "Offensive with Defensive options" to "Bulky with Offensive Win-con playstyle" since Dark is not QUITE as offensively pressuring as Fire but also gives a nice suite of resistances added, while having better neutral coverage alongside Flying to facilitate things like bulky NP into Neutral-spam Win-con. It's a cool compromise that improves on a role that emerged from Moltres's play without completely throwing away traits of its old role that helped there.
 
As one of the few who loves X/Y, seeing some appreciation for them in this thread makes me very happy. It annoys me how the fandom generally seems to focus on the negatives of X/Y while ignoring their positives (compare this to S/M which often seems to be getting the polar opposite treatment). I remember that in the past, X/Y were very positively received when they were first released, but sadly, it seems like they are the least liked games in the fandom nowadays.

Personally, I have always been a big fan of them. I don't care much for story or difficulty in Pokémon, but I do appreciate many of the other things X/Y have to offer. Epic training spots, an amazing multiplayer gadget, a large regional dex, great Pokémon distribution/variation... and a National Dex. Those are also things that S/M were desperately missing... I guess it is obvious which of the two first pairs on the 3DS I like better.

I agree about X/Y being a step down from B2/W2, but they are still excellent and I personally consider X/Y to be the closest the the series has gotten to a true successor to Gen 5. I think X/Y built upon many great things that started in Gen 5.

I have posted everything I like about X/Y in the past so I won't repeat it all once more. Overall, I am a big fan of X/Y. Even if it has been almost 9 years since their release, and even if I have played OR/AS, S/M, US/UM, Sword and L:A since then, X/Y are still my favorite main series games in 3D.

I am also a fan of OR/AS. As one of the few people who didn't like HG/SS, I really like how OR/AS showed that it was possible to make another good remake after FR/LG. I was initially not very hyped for OR/AS and I didn't even get them on their release date, but I eventually got them and the more I played them, the more I liked them. Nowadays, they are my favorite Pokémon remakes.

On the whole, Gen 6 is my second favorite. When it comes to the things I consider important in Pokémon, it does almost everything right and very little wrong. X/Y are my third favorite games in the series and OR/AS my fourth favorites.

I am also a bit surprised at how badly BD/SP seem to be received within the fandom. People generally seemed very positive to them during the pre-release period, but it seems to have changed. I have not played these games so I can't really speak for them... but I guess the fact that I haven't played them speaks for itself.

On to other things. I saw some posts in the annoyances thread which reminded me of other things I really like. First of all, I am a huge fan of infinite TMs. When I play Pokémon, I usually focus on the post-game way more than the main game. So in Gen 5-7, I really appreciated how I only had to obtain a TM once as opposed to multiple times if I wanted to teach a move to several Pokémon. In comparison, it was a bit dull when I played R/S/E or D/P/P and wanted to teach a move like Thunderbolt/Flamethrower/Ice Beam to several different Pokémon. In order to do that, I had to grind up the money to buy a lot of coins from the Game Corner so I could buy several TMs. But in Gen 5-7, I no longer had to do that. I can understand that they wanted to "balance" things better with the TR/TM system in S/S, but I do not approve of it as it makes the games less enjoyable when it comes to the way I play them. I also find it ironic how BD/SP does not have infinite TMs as that is one of the things I am really missing in Gen 4.

Another thing I like is how Move Tutors work in the newer generations. In Gen 3, they could only be used once in FR/LG, the same went for several of the MT moves in Emerald. While there are some positives about this as green_typhlosion talked about here, the fact that they are one-time really takes away from it IMO. Another annoyance from the past is how MTs required BP while also being pretty expensive, this happened in Emerald and HG/SS.

But other games have handled them much better. In Platinum and B2/W2, they cost Shards instead of BP. Shards are thankfully very easy to farm in those games thanks to the Underground and the Funfest Mission "Find Shards!". In OR/AS and US/UM, they cost BP once again. But they are now much cheaper than in Emerald and HG/SS, and BP are much easier to farm here thanks to how the Maison/Tree gives you BP after every battle. So I really like how obtaining MT moves have gotten better over the generations.

Lastly, one random minor thing I just remembered. In US/UM, Nanu calls Mina a filly during her trial. I don't know why he decided to call her that but I find it incredibly funny.
 
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Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Just to add onto the XY praising, XY did two other notable things which I think do really deserve praising even if you don't like XY: Pokemon-Amie & Trainer Customization.

Pokemon-Amie was a much needed feature which I guess could only be realized fully with 3D graphics. For a franchise which wants you to be friends with this colorful monsters with elemental powers, you couldn't really do a lot of interactions with them, notably "playing" with then. Pokemon-Amie, and all it's other expies in games after it, finally added that final needed feature which lets players actually able to form a bond with a packet of data. Curious what Scarlet & Violet plans on doing with their Pokemon-Amie expy; Camp in SwSh I felt was both a step forward with how the Pokemon acted and increased range of animation but also a step back as you can't directly pet them (and if GF were having an issue with how some players may have been sexualizing the feature they could have just limited where you pet some Pokemon and included different ways to interact with them like letting you high-five & play rock-paper-scissors with the more humanoid Pokemon).

Trainer Customization, another thing which pretty much going 3D allowed them to do, finally let you put "yourself" into the game... or at least a child version of yourself into the game. In a way it goes hand-in-hand with Pokemon-Amie with forming a bond with your Pokemon.
 

I've always found Gligar's design appealing. It looks tough and derpy at the same time, it's always shaded to look shiny in the anime, its claws and stinger have similar proportions that make it look balanced (side-note: I thought its stinger was a third claw as a kid), and it's an amalgamation of concepts. It's a pun on scorpionflies, but it has claws like a crab, a stinger like a scorpion, and can fly like a bat; it's the kind of design you won't see anywhere else.
 
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