Little things you like about Pokémon

[Karxrida]

While I'm still not super hot on Walking Wake's visual design, from a gameplay design standpoint I think it's easily one of the Paradox Pokémon.

Paradoxes are meant to be these kind of weird cryptids that are possibly not even truly real. And what's weirder than a Water-type that thrives in Sun thanks to its ability and signature move? And it still functions in Rain if you want it too.

Ingenious idea with beautiful execution. Wish more Paradoxes were like that.

 

[Sonikku A]

The Grand Underground is so good.

It could've used some toning down on the levels, especially pre-Gardenia, but it's SO good.

It gets me how map layout wise it's better than the rest of the game, alleviated the plat exclusives issue, and actually bothers to model props
Shame it's right next to "we removed Secret Bases"

 

[Pikachu315111]

I might just be seeing things but when I played Legends Arceus I thought it was really cute that the Generic NPC characters have their facial designs based on really oldschool Pokemon art.

What do you mean?

If they do do Generation 7 evolutions, I really wonder what will get evolutions. I've always thought it was a fairly well-made dex with few if any glaring errors, besides like, "The ugly fish Pokemon that is supposed to be ugly is ugly!"

Hm, that's hard to think about as a lot of the Gen VII Pokemon look "complete". That said, so did Bisharp and Duraludon but they got evos so anything's possible (not to mention Dipplin is a new branched evolution so even families with a full 3 stages may not completely out of the loop).

Honestly, would be interested to see Oricorio get new styles (Baile Style is more a Latin American style).

Hey, we already have Midday, Midnight, and Dusk, may as well complete the set and give us a Dawn Lycanroc (color it lavender and draw it like its Midnight form changing into Midday form, that we we have a full cycle of a wolf transforming into and back from a werewolf).

I'll stop now. Oh, wait, I just reached the end of comments. Guess I should post something new. Hmm, well, the Pokemon Youtube channel has some interesting videos (sadly no other Pokemon Championship History):

1. For the 2023 World Championships seemingly commissioned several song themes:

• Legendary by Kero Kero Bonito (Youtube Channel)
• Edge of Greatness performed by Popnick
• Look How Far We've Come performed by Popnick
• Immortalized performed by Oskura (Youtube Channel)
• Anytime Anywhere performed by Byfox

* Note that, aside from Legendary which is all Kero Kero Bonito, each song has additional writing credits in the description. Popnick is also a writer for the last two (along with the writers credited in the songs he performed) so seems like his company was involved with this? Also, I'm assuming the Oskura and Byfox I linked are the ones who performed the song (you'd think performing a song for a Pokemon event would be a great time to advertise yourself...).

Anyway, their Youtube has a whole batch of videos covering the 2023 World Championship if you're interested in what happened there (and it's not just the matches they recap, though that is most of the videos). They also announced the 2024's is going back to Hawaii, Honolulu specifically. Though I feel I should mention the recent wildfires that happened in Maui, they're still recovering and the Pokemon Company made a donation and looking into other ways they can help.

2. They released a short animation focusing on Oddish:

Why Oddish? Well mainly because it took a starring role in the recent Path to the Peak mini-series. They also released a Beyond the Pokedex video for it (Beyond the Pokedex is a Youtube series which focuses on a Pokemon and it's lore and appearances in video game, TCG, and the anime; as far as I can tell it only has 3 videos counting the Oddish one with the last one, Pachirisu, being made a month ago).

3. Looking further back, found they did a nearly 1 hour ASMR video of a sleeping Snorlax to promote Pokemon Sleep:

4. BTW, if you haven't checked them out, Pokemon has some shockingly high quality commercials. It's mostly for TCG stuff, but they also have other things like this animation for the 2023 World Championship:

5. Moving over to the Shorts tab, there's two series of videos I find interesting.
Going back to the 2023 World Championship, they showcase a few of the events and set pieces they had in Yokohama:

• Pokemon decked out the airport.
• The event building.
• Pokemon photogenic spots: Pokegenic (more detailed map & photo ops)
• Grimer recycling bin.
• BTW, they rented a docked cruise ship as a hangout spot. (more info here about the ship)
• Matsuri Park Japanese Fair (and click here for more info on that)

And some videos spotlighting the art collab Pokemon is having with KOGEI (and here's a site explaining what Kogei is):

• Transforming Rookidee/Corviknight Ornament.
• Moltres Tea Caddy.

Well, that's all from me.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

While I'm still not super hot on Walking Wake's visual design, from a gameplay design standpoint I think it's easily one of the Paradox Pokémon.

I read this not long after waking up and it took me a second to realise what you meant by this. For a few moments I read it as that "one of the X of all time" gag, like "Walking Wake is certainly one of the Paradox Pokemon of all time".

 

[Pikachu315111]

I read this not long after waking up and it took me a second to realise what you meant by this. For a few moments I read it as that "one of the X of all time" gag, like "Walking Wake is certainly one of the Paradox Pokemon of all time".

I figured they just forgot to put "best" before "Paradox Pokemon".

 

[CPU]

While I'm still not super hot on Walking Wake's visual design, from a gameplay design standpoint I think it's easily one of the Paradox Pokémon.

Paradoxes are meant to be these kind of weird cryptids that are possibly not even truly real. And what's weirder than a Water-type that thrives in Sun thanks to its ability and signature move? And it still functions in Rain if you want it too.

Ingenious idea with beautiful execution. Wish more Paradoxes were like that.

It might not be intentional, but I like how Walking Wake can function well in both Rain and Sun, and how Iron Leaves can make strong use of the three power-boosting Terrains. With an ability that gives it a power boost in Electric, and a typing that gets STAB on the other two, it doesn't mind Grassy or Psychic Terrains, either.

Basically I like how one of them is dangerous in multiple types of weather, and the other is dangerous in multiple types of terrain.

 

[Scorpio]

It might not be intentional, but I like how Walking Wake can function well in both Rain and Sun, and how Iron Leaves can make strong use of the three power-boosting Terrains. With an ability that gives it a power boost in Electric, and a typing that gets STAB on the other two, it doesn't mind Grassy or Psychic Terrains, either.

Basically I like how one of them is dangerous in multiple types of weather, and the other is dangerous in multiple types of terrain.

…I just realized that about Iron Leaves. Wonder if the other Beast/Sword Paradoxes are gonna have something similar - we have another of each coming up so we’ll be able to find out soon.

 

[R_N]

…I just realized that about Iron Leaves. Wonder if the other Beast/Sword Paradoxes are gonna have something similar - we have another of each coming up so we’ll be able to find out soon.

We know their typing and signature move, doesn't seem like it.
Raging Bolt does, passively, benefit from Electric Terrain...on account of being an electric type and using an electric move. And there doesn't seem to be any interaction with any weather.
Iron Crown has no such connection to anything; it's jsut a 100% accurate double hit steel move.

I think CPU is right that Iron Leaves happening to benefit from 3 terrain boosts is probably just coincidental. I think the only reason Psyblade got an Electric Terrain boost is because Hydro Steam got a sun boost and they wanted parity on that. And Hydro Steam needed the sun caveat because as an ancient paradox Wake needed its signature Water move to work in the sun for Protosynthesis.
Meanwhile it's Grass/Psychic. Well the way the typing for these worked out is they want the trios to share one typing (Dragon for the beasts, Psychic for the musketeers) and use their "signature" typing for the other so all the Futures were going to benefit from Psychic Terrain for STAB purposes. & the way the other half of the decision works out, Virizion would be Grass, so it would benefit from Grassy Terrain for STAB too. But They don't really do anything with it, you know?


Incidentally Iron Leaves actually didn't get a lot of Psychic type attacking moves? That's really funny to me. It has Psyblade and...that's it. All its other Psychic moves are status like Calm Mind or Imprison. Kind of wonder how that'll shake out for Crown and Terrakion.

 

[Worldie]

Incidentally Iron Leaves actually didn't get a lot of Psychic type attacking moves? That's really funny to me. It has Psyblade and...that's it. All its other Psychic moves are status like Calm Mind or Imprison. Kind of wonder how that'll shake out for Crown and Terrakion.

Honestly the main gain from all of this is that there's a slight chance "Terrakion" gets an actually accurate signature move for rock stab so it doesn't have to rely on stone miss or flinch slide.

Also who am I kidding if it's good enough to have VGC use it'll spam rock slide anyway cause why wouldn't you...

 

[R_N]

Honestly the main gain from all of this is that there's a slight chance "Terrakion" gets an actually accurate signature move for rock stab so it doesn't have to rely on stone miss or flinch slide.

Also who am I kidding if it's good enough to have VGC use it'll spam rock slide anyway cause why wouldn't you...

Why use Rock Slide when your signature move is a stronger, flinchier rock slider :V





Actually wait it's kind of really weird that Virizon's signature move is Psychic, huh? They still could have made a "its a grass move, but gets boosted by electric terrain" move instead. Of the 3 others we know about, all of them got a signature move associated with their non-shared typing...that'll probably carry over to the remaining 2, yeah? Maybe Paradox Entei gets a dragon move as some weird asymmetry

 

[Worldie]

Why use Rock Slide when your signature move is a stronger, flinchier rock slider :V

shhhh don't give them ideas

Actually wait it's kind of really weird that Virizon's signature move is Psychic, huh? They still could have made a "its a grass move, but gets boosted by electric terrain" move instead.

I think the main reason they opted for Psychic there was more a balancing reason than a flavour one.
For Walking Wake, they were like "uhm we made a Water type pokemon that has an ability that activates under sun, it needs something to solve this paradox (hehehe)" so they came up with its signature ability.
For Iron Leaves instead they were likely thinking "this pokemon already gets a good enough Grass stab in Leaf Blade, but its Psychic type stabs would be very lackluster (Psycho cut has low BP, and Zen Headbutt is both inaccurate and not really a nuke), let's give it a new Psychic stab that gets buffed under the terrain it requires for its ability".

If they didn't already reveal ""Cobalion""'s signature move, i'd have honestly just expected Psyblade to be a shared move honestly.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Incidentally Iron Leaves actually didn't get a lot of Psychic type attacking moves? That's really funny to me. It has Psyblade and...that's it. All its other Psychic moves are status like Calm Mind or Imprison. Kind of wonder how that'll shake out for Crown and Terrakion.

The only other Psychic move I can see at least Iron Leaves getting is Psycho Cut. While the two Moves are different in effect, maybe to GF they felt the Move's aesthetics were too similar so decided it was good with just Psyblade and a batch of Psychic status moves. I imagine Cobalion and Terrakion, who have more bulkier builds, will likely get both Psycho Cut and Zen Headbutt.

Actually wait it's kind of really weird that Virizon's signature move is Psychic, huh? They still could have made a "its a grass move, but gets boosted by electric terrain" move instead. Of the 3 others we know about, all of them got a signature move associated with their non-shared typing...that'll probably carry over to the remaining 2, yeah? Maybe Paradox Entei gets a dragon move as some weird asymmetry

Maybe they went Psychic cause, unlike with Hydro Steam, there was nothing special they could do with it. They could have made Psyblade into a Grass move... but who would use it over 90 Power Leaf Blade? Iron Leaves likely wasn't getting Zen Headbutt or Psychic Fangs, so its strongest Psychic-type Move would be 70 Power Psycho Cut. So, they decided to go with the Type that didn't have the stronger Physical Move.

(EDIT: Should really read ahead more... I will have my vengeance Worldie, even though it's my fault for not reading ahead but I need to setup the joke)

On a similar though, yeah, Paradox Entei getting a Sig Dragon Move would make sense if it remains a Physical Attacker and keeps Sacred Fire.

Besides, while this is something GF isn't thinking about (especially now that they're cutting Moves when they don't feel they need them), it's going to be a bit difficult to spread these Moves if they ever think of wanting to do that. Like, Hydro Steam may have a chance (Volcanion surely would like it... and also a Fire-type Move that is powered-up in Rain), though Psyblade would be a harder sell (and would have been an even harder sell if it was Grass-type).

Final thoughts, since Iron Leaves is obviously missing Psycho Cut, I decided to see if Walking Wake was missing any notable Water Moves. And technically, it is: Surf. Suicune has it in its Level-Up, but Walking Wake doesn't. NOW, Walking Wake can still learn Surf via TM so no problem there... BUT Psycho Cut doesn't have a TM this gen. If Psycho Cut was a TM, I would bet Iron Leaves would have been able to learn it (the DLCs are introducing new TMs, so if one is Psycho Cut we'll see).

Though found one other oddity: Apparently Iron Leaves can only have Megahorn if you caught it from its Raid Event. Now, this is no problem as Megahorn is meh all Iron Leaves right now are from the Raid Event. Still, odd for them to do that (unless Megahorn is also a DLC TM). EDIT: Nevermind I didn't read the movepool correctly.

shhhh don't give them ideas

Rock-type Physical Air Slash. (My vengeance is complete)

 

[R_N]

Though found one other oddity: Apparently Iron Leaves can only have Megahorn if you caught it from its Raid Event. Now, this is no problem as Megahorn is meh all Iron Leaves right now are from the Raid Event. Still, odd for them to do that (unless Megahorn is also a DLC TM).

It learns Megahorn at level 77
The thing that makes it an "event move" is that you catch Iron Leaves at level 75; that's why the event section of bulbapedia has the level 75 asterisk on it

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea's Japanese name is literally "Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation the Movie: The Pokémon Ranger and the Prince of the Sea: Manaphy."

bro, condense the name of your movie????? that's so absurd it's amazing

"Pocket Monsters Best Wishes! The Movie: ExtremeSpeed Genesect: Mewtwo Awakens" is not quite as good but still silly

 

[Karxrida]

Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea's Japanese name is literally "Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation the Movie: The Pokémon Ranger and the Prince of the Sea: Manaphy."

bro, condense the name of your movie????? that's so absurd it's amazing

"Pocket Monsters Best Wishes! The Movie: ExtremeSpeed Genesect: Mewtwo Awakens" is not quite as good but still silly

Nobody tell Drumstick about the light novel industry lol.

 

[CTNC]

Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea's Japanese name is literally "Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation the Movie: The Pokémon Ranger and the Prince of the Sea: Manaphy."

bro, condense the name of your movie????? that's so absurd it's amazing

16 words... 10 if you cut out, "Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation the Movie:" So many needless words... 0_o

Nobody tell Drumstick about the light novel industry lol.

How much worse does it get than I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense? (BTW, is anyone surprised I watched the Anime of it? :P)

 

[Hugin]

How much worse does it get than I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense? (BTW, is anyone surprised I watched the Anime of it? :P)

NagaiTatoru. That's the abbreviation, since the actual title is 196 pages long.

 

[Scorpio]

NagaiTatoru. That's the abbreviation, since the actual title is 196 pages long.

I swear everyone who has any say in LN titles saw the part in Homestuck where the titles for troll movies are literally just plot summaries and were all like “I can dig it”

 

[DrumstickGaming]

NagaiTatoru. That's the abbreviation, since the actual title is 196 pages long.

W H A T

 

[Coronis]

Laventon’s Pokedex descriptions. Well some of them. Especially with recycling of dex entries over and over they’re very refreshing. (though some are quite annoying to unlock!)

For example was looking over Infernape’s bulbapedia page recently:

A tall, hardy Pokémon with a dazzling appearance. It shrouds itself in flame and battles as if engaged in dance—truly a sight to behold.

 

[MoonlightRose]

The final opponent of the main story battles you using Pokémon she just caught. And she's still the toughest battle in the game. That's brilliant.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Spoiler for a new item in the Teal Mask:

But it's about freakin' time

Fairy Feather: An item to be held by a Pokémon. This feather, which gleams faintly when hit by light, boosts the power of the holder's Fairy-type moves.

REALLY GameFreak. It took FOUR generations, TEN years, to make the generic Fairy-type power-up. "Well they had the Pixie Plate". I suppose, but because its an Arceus Plate that also meant they felt they needed to not make it too easy to get (and sometimes you needed Arceus to even get access to the Plates). And, yes, the Type power-up items aren't exactly top tier items so Fairy not having one was a major issue, but still, it's an option other Types had which Fairy oddly didn't until now. While I don't think used often (if at all) in competitive, in a casual playthrough, if you didn't really have any other good item to give a Pokemon, a power-up item was just a nice thing to have to give to a Pokemon either to strengthen a STAB or buff a coverage. This item should have been introduced when the Fairy-type was introduced (in the code for Gen VI and VII they had a FAIRY GEM when they stopped giving out those items).

Though when I think of Fairy I don't think of feathers. This kind of feels like just now they realized they didn't have a generic Fairy power-up item and quickly through this together. "What would you have done"? Well, I would have done a callback to Gen II and repurposed the Pink Bow, but if they wanted something more original how about "Fairy Dust", "Tinker Bell", maybe even a "Magic Wand".

 

[R_N]

Most other legendaries: might have probably killed someone at some point, likely incidentally. Unless you're like Yveltal.

Paldean Legendaries:

Base game and DLC

The other Koraidon/Miraidon: Killed the professor
Ruinous Legends: Definitely did some murder
The "Loyal 3": killed the hell out of that masked guy
Ogrepon: killed the hell out of the loyal 3


Our Koraidon/Miraidon: the only one free of sin

Terapagos probably has a kill count too, just you see

 

[Coronis]

Something I noticed whilst replaying early SV - when you fall off a cliff or anywhere and the Rotom Phone pops out and levitates you to save you. So sweet.

(sometimes the animation still shows you hitting the ground first but hey, its the thought I appreciate)

 

[Imperial Magala]

Remember how everyone made fun of Geeta for having Glimmora, one of the best team leads, as her ace and not her Kingambit with Supreme Overlord? Well better include the devs because in the Teal Mask, you can encounter strong NPC trainers across the map called the Ogre Clan, with their leader doing what Geeta didn't.