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Little things you like about Pokémon

DrPumpkinz said:
Since Gen 3, there have been five main flavors in Pokemon, but Gen 9 seems to have made an alteration to those flavors with the Herba Mystica. Previously, everything used Sweet/Sour/Spicy/Bitter/Dry, but the Herba Mystica use Sweet/Sour/Spicy/Bitter/Salty.

Back when I played Emerald as a wee lad, I was very confused about what the hell a dry flavor was. I'm now in my mid 20's and I still don't really know what a dry flavor is. I hope Pokemon sticks with Salty for future flavor mechanics, because I think it's telling that one of the first suggestions you get when you Google search "dry flavor" is "dry flavor pokemon".
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Check out a good martini sometime.
 
Forretress previously was stuck with Steel STAB moves that were finnicky for in-game runs, one was Heavy Slam and the other was Gyro Ball. Too much variance and the latter got a lot worse if you were a decent few levels higher than the opponent. Scarlet and Violet however gave it access to both Smart Strike and Iron Head, thus meaning all 3 people that want to use Forretress in-game now have STAB options that aren't significantly more useful in PVP than in-game. Now all in needs is a reliable physical Bug Stab(current line-up is Bug Bite, Pin Missile, and Pounce, which I guess Pin Missile could work in-game with Loaded Dice)
 
CPU said:
Why does Forretress get Smart Strike, where's the horn/thrusting appendage
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It does have those weird tube things.
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It also learns Pin Missile, so maybe it shoots spikes out of them.
 
Area Zero is perfect. Genuinely feels like a modern day Cerulean Cave, except even more ominous due to having multiple high level encounters in the overworld, ominous music, and being far away from civilization. The presence of multiple final evolutions of 3 stage lines like Corviknight and Raichu really helps sell that the Pokemon there are on another level and that you shouldn't be there.
 
Magcargo said:
Area Zero is perfect. Genuinely feels like a modern day Cerulean Cave, except even more ominous due to having multiple high level encounters in the overworld, ominous music, and being far away from civilization. The presence of multiple final evolutions of 3 stage lines like Corviknight and Raichu really helps sell that the Pokemon there are on another level and that you shouldn't be there.
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It also helps that the first time you get there
you know you're here on a potential rescue mission and progressively find out the tragic fuckery that went on with Turo/Sada, on top of Koraidon/Miraidon being too scared to come out forcing you to actually walk through the place, adding to the eerie feeling of "something is not quite right"
 
Haven't been able to play too much competitive the past week, so I can't give an opinion on the mechanic there, but I like how Tera is handled in SV It's more of an emergency option that you have available to you rather than an auto win button every battle (since its one time use) and there are many cases where it can backfire. A noticeable instance it did so for me was when I was battling the Dragon-type elite 4 member and Terralstilized my Tinkaton to a Fairy-Type. His Dragalge was able to tank my Metal Coat Gigaton Hammer and OHKO'D back with Sludge Bomb, which would not have happened if I did not Terrastilize.
 
I absolutely adore Arven's team.
Something that bothers me about a lot of teams, even teams with a type specialty but especially ones without, is that they rarely have any thematic cohesion. I look at almost any team and the most I can draw from it is "that's just a bunch of Pokemon they threw together". Maybe on a type specialist's team there will be an off-type Pokemon whose flavor matches the type, but the roster rarely ever tells me anything about the trainer, save for sometimes their ace.

Arven's team is different. Obviously his ace is important to his character (Mabosstiff almost singlehandedly makes Arven one of the best characters in all of Pokemon) but instead of having the rest of his team be random picks, Game Freak had them all tie into his food theme. He's got a mushroom, an oyster, a block of salt, a hot pepper, and a gluttonous squirrel with berries stashed away in his tail.

My only gripe is that they don't seem to correspond to the flavors of the Herba Mystica. Arven uses Nacli to get the Bitter Herba instead of the Salty Herba, and uses Scovillain to get the Sour Herba instead of the Spicy Herba. They might still correspond to the five flavors independent on which he uses to get each herb, but I haven't really eaten any oysters or mushrooms so I don't know if they match up with Sour or Bitter (Greedent I assume would be Sweet, but with how varied the berries are in Pokemon he could honestly slot anywhere).
 
DrPumpkinz said:
I absolutely adore Arven's team.
Something that bothers me about a lot of teams, even teams with a type specialty but especially ones without, is that they rarely have any thematic cohesion. I look at almost any team and the most I can draw from it is "that's just a bunch of Pokemon they threw together". Maybe on a type specialist's team there will be an off-type Pokemon whose flavor matches the type, but the roster rarely ever tells me anything about the trainer, save for sometimes their ace.

Arven's team is different. Obviously his ace is important to his character (Mabosstiff almost singlehandedly makes Arven one of the best characters in all of Pokemon) but instead of having the rest of his team be random picks, Game Freak had them all tie into his food theme. He's got a mushroom, an oyster, a block of salt, a hot pepper, and a gluttonous squirrel with berries stashed away in his tail.

My only gripe is that they don't seem to correspond to the flavors of the Herba Mystica. Arven uses Nacli to get the Bitter Herba instead of the Salty Herba, and uses Scovillain to get the Sour Herba instead of the Spicy Herba. They might still correspond to the five flavors independent on which he uses to get each herb, but I haven't really eaten any oysters or mushrooms so I don't know if they match up with Sour or Bitter (Greedent I assume would be Sweet, but with how varied the berries are in Pokemon he could honestly slot anywhere).
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The pokemon were more meant to act as counters to the Titans
Shellder trumps Klawf
Nacli trumps Bombirdier
Toedscool....well it's not actually SE against Orthworm but it should have been since it had Ground typing. Resisted it though!
Scovillian is SE against both Great Tusk & Iron Treads (& resists them!)

Greedent the only odd man out (though it does at least have Bullet Seed?) but it is also his first (second, really) Pokemon so like. Fair.
 
people said:
Blipbug
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Adding on to the Blipbug appreciation, I used one in Sword.

-While it is weak, it doesn’t stay a Blipbug for long, evolving into Dottler at Lv. 10... which given the always-on Exp. Share and Blipbug’s Fast growth rate, it should get there in no time. Plus, there are worse attacks to get stuck with than Struggle Bug
-Upon evolving into Dottler, it gets a bit stronger and way tankier, especially with Screens (which, again, you might as well get using since you don’t really have much beyond those and STABs)
-Orbeetle is a badass design and a pretty strong Pokémon, really it’s only less-than-good stats are HP (made up for with its great defenses) and Attack (like you’d be using a Physical attack that isn’t Body Press anyways)

Overall, a great take on the Early Bug and a Pokémon I am proud to have used. Plus it’s a very notable user of some neglected (at least in-game) moves (...granted, that’s by virtue of being stuck with them for 20/30 levels, but still)

Really my only problem is that Bug Buzz is stuck behind the Move Tutor, which I didn’t really use so much of
 
I exclusively do no-Dynamax runs of SwSh, and Dottler is godly. Screens are excellent for tanking the enemy DMax, and Dottler/Orbeetle get them early, have a pivot move in U-Turn, and have good bulk but a lot of weaknesses. It's really easy to get screens up with a safe switch to a better offensive mon. Highly recommended.
 
Oranguru's Moon Pokedex Entry:
"Deep in the jungle, high in the lofty canopy, this Pokémon abides. On rare occasions, it shows up at the beach to match wits with Slowking."

Slowking's Ultra Moon Pokedex Entry: "
"It’s called “the sage of the sea.” It engages in battles of wits with Oranguru, but the result is usually a draw."

Well, lo and behold in SV's Pokedex:

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Behold, a battle of wits between Oranguru and Slowking, made manifest!
 
So starting around gen 6, with the move to 3D models, shinies started to play with the fact that every pokemon had more distinct parts and separate textures to them where, instead of changing color of most of the Pokemon they'd zero-in on a specific chunk and leave the rest unalatered. Honestly I think any of the ones that do that are getting a bit too cute and subtle; there's a few good ones but a lot of ones where its like well....you could have done more....


But SV's future paradoxes do a cool thing with this!
all the Future Paradoxes are robots and the design motif is 3 aspects:
-metallic robot body
-weird colored energy/fluid highlights
-some coloring

For the shiny variants, they remove the color coating

Basically they're unfinished robots! I think it's a neat effect, especially on the more colorful paradoxes like Iron Bundle
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I have to say, I love the concept of Paradox Pokemon. Below is the reason why but some spoilers for SV, but more specifically for Scarlet "DLC?"

I like how past version of Volcarona is a physical attacker like its pre-evolution and focuses more on the bug aspect while the future version fully embraces its fire orientated and special stats of the evolved version as Volcarona's signature move is fire.

Similarly Donphan's past version resembles a bit a mix of a Mamoth and Dinosaur being all large and all while the Future Version is taking its tire like design to a new level since tires are something human created based on something they saw rolling. Not to mention, it is small and optimized like how technology tends to try being small to waste as little space as possible (examples like Smart Devices and Home Consoles but we are
evolving a bit back in that aspect).

In general that the ancients are bigger and the futuristic ones smaller is nice touch into detail. Still would have prefered not every future paradox Pokemon to be robotic or have Iron in the name. Cyber Bird or Delibot would be nice for a name for Iron Bundle. Or has crossbreeding Pokemon never lead to a new species in the future?

Also the dex entry in Scarlet for Future Hydreigon is... questionable...

But some hidden lore in the games hint conflicting information about the legendary beasts and what they used to be before what we saw them as after Ho-Oh saved them. Maybe they weren't Eeveelutions like we used to think which would line up perfectly. Or Ho-oh's power granted them the power of the ancient past as it can learn Ancient Power... But that is headcanon.

What worries me more is, if ancient Pokemon were that strong, why are fossil Pokemon that weak? I would think the past far back must have been even harsher.
 
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