I also don't think of the fruit-based mons as the exact same category, but I'm also a fan of a lot of objectmons so I wouldn't call them better. Similarly, I always considered the Nacli line as based off salt as a crystal first, a ward second, and a seasoning last. Withing the group, I'm not a huge fan of Slurpuff (the theming feels tacked-on to something that's mechanically a pretty generic Fairy) and Alcremie (I don't care how similar they are, introducing something with that many forms in the same game they start cutting mons 'because the models were getting to serious' is a terrible look) but the others are fine. Dashbun is particularly up there for having a cool and (heh) flavourful signature ability and picking up the Mineral egg group.
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There is also the very likely probability that canonically in the Pokemon World these mons existed first and then humans based dishes off of them.
Honestly it reminds me of the Amoonguss and Voltorb dilemmas. If they exist since ancient ages (cough cough hisuian Voltorb) how can they have the shape of something that did not exist?
The Hisuian Voltorb/Electrode variant is a interesting take on it (they look more wooden like the original pokeballs), but again, that still doesn't solve the issue of why are they pokeball shaped in first place.
In-universe Coincidence. Even Laventon goes 'happens to bears a resemblance to a Pokeball' and leaves it at that; there's no reference to Voltorbs of other regions either.
Hisuian Voltorb is ultimately just a ball with a seed blow hole in it
modern, non-hisuian Voltrob seemingly evolved to base itself off modern ball since it was only discovered around Pokeball factories.
Foongus/Amoonguss also...doesn't seem especially mysterious? They either probably evolved their pokeball patterns after the introduction of the ball (like flowers or insects that do similarly) or they always had a similar pattern; its like moths that looks like a spooky skull or whatever.
If Brute Bonnet "truly" exists then it's firmly the latter. And if it doesn't, well, it's irrelevant.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Scarlet dex entry of foongus says “There is a theory that the developer of the modern-day Poké Ball really liked Foongus, but this has not been confirmed.” It’s not a direct confirmation, but it makes it seem more likely that the pokemon came first imo
That's the obvious workaround and "just don't think too hard about it" solution, but to me it starts to feel more and more convoluted as more mons are introduced that are based on human made things and have properties of those things, like a doughy looking dog that has literal yeast breath or a living trash bag. At some point it just feels cleaner to say "screw it, they came from the dream world."
I am assuming this is specifically an issue with Slurpuff, not Swirlix, because Swirlix seems pretty clearly based on cotton candy (fairy floss). I guess the theming between the two is a little weak, sure, but visually they look similar enough.
Well, Trubbish is explicitly more of a Grimer case, where manmade pollutants were brought to life by mysterious factors (insert your preference of “comic book chemistry” or “esoteric quasi-tsukumogami magic”)
White Pokédex entry: “The combination of garbage bags and industrial waste caused the chemical reaction that created this Pokémon.”
All they'd actually have needed to do is retcon Apricorns to have a bi-color look* during L:A, and suddenly it all makes sense. Various things eat Apricorns, Foongus/Voltorb look like Apricorns to catch prey**, humans turn Apricorns into pokeballs, later balls keep the same design out of tradition, Foongus/Voltorb evolve over time to match the new design. Solve the problem and flesh out the natural world at the same time.
*Or state that modern White/Blue/Black/etc Apricorns are the result of selective breeding by humans and the OG Apricorns were White+Red
**Why Voltorb, whose primary reaction to meeting anything is to blow itself up, looks like something people WANT to interact with, has never been satisfactorily explained, but that's not new.
Wait, scratch all of that. Voltorb reacts really badly to being interacted with and Foongus is slow and toxic. They don't have Pokeball colors for disguise, they have them as a warning. "I'm red+white, colors that camouflage with nothing when together. Come near me and die." Which would mean humans modeled our balls after dangerous-to-approach mons(presumably so that if you drop your ball in the wild nothing plays with it), and then those mons evolved to look more like our balls after wild mons learned that the human's Red+White balls are dangerous.
In the past two Generations with the DLC its been easier for GF to spice up more of the non-mascot Legends with a bit of Lore which is nice.
I also like that over the previous 3 Gens we’ve had more and more Legends that break that 580 or 600 mould. e.g Zygarde 10%, Type Null/Silvally, Tapus, Cosmog/Cosmoem, Kubfu, Calyrex, Treasures of Ruin, Loyal Three, Ogerpon. Very small change of course and most of these are prevos or have their own unique gimmick, but I like that they are experimenting a little more.
I also like that over the previous 3 Gens we’ve had more and more Legends that break that 580 or 600 mould. e.g Zygarde 10%, Type Null/Silvally, Tapus, Cosmog/Cosmoem, Kubfu, Calyrex, Treasures of Ruin, Loyal Three, Ogerpon. Very small change of course and most of these are prevos or have their own unique gimmick, but I like that they are experimenting a little more.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Something else that's occurred to me recently, as I've been transferring a lot of species from the VC to Bank, is how surprising it is that every move was retained from the earlier gens through the cutoff in Gen III.
Like, they didn't have to keep every move in the game in the transition from Gen II to Gen III, and yet they did anyway. Which I think is really cool. That commitment to retaining old mechanics is genuinely commendable and I think we took it a little for granted. Especially since there are a quite ridiculous amount of moves in RS that go entirely unused (you can't even call them by Metronome, since nothing in RS gets that move either).
Obviously there wasn't really a need to get rid of any moves since they all pretty much worked as intended, but they scrapped a whole lot of other stuff from Gen II. It's something that stands in contrast to later generations because a lot of Pokemon games are made using previous ones as a starting point and so tend to inherit a lot of data that goes unused. But to the best of my knowledge Gen III were (more or less) made from scratch so they had the opportunity to throw out anything they didn't need. The fact that they thought every move was worth keeping is incredibly cool and part of the general commitment to keeping connectivity between games that I've always really appreciated.
Like, they didn't have to keep every move in the game in the transition from Gen II to Gen III, and yet they did anyway. Which I think is really cool. That commitment to retaining old mechanics is genuinely commendable and I think we took it a little for granted. Especially since there are a quite ridiculous amount of moves in RS that go entirely unused (you can't even call them by Metronome, since nothing in RS gets that move either).
Obviously there wasn't really a need to get rid of any moves since they all pretty much worked as intended, but they scrapped a whole lot of other stuff from Gen II. It's something that stands in contrast to later generations because a lot of Pokemon games are made using previous ones as a starting point and so tend to inherit a lot of data that goes unused. But to the best of my knowledge Gen III were (more or less) made from scratch so they had the opportunity to throw out anything they didn't need. The fact that they thought every move was worth keeping is incredibly cool and part of the general commitment to keeping connectivity between games that I've always really appreciated.
On one hand, I like Pikachu's and Eevee's "anime" cries. On the other hand, these cries do stick out in a bad way because nothing else except Gigantamax Meowth got this treatment, not even their evolutions.
The ”overworld” music in Pokemon Legends Arceus
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Yung Dramps
awesome gaming
*shoves roxie to the side*
https://serebii.net/pokemonmasters/syncpairs/elaine.shtml
They finally are adding Let's Go characters! I always thought the avoidance of them was silly, so it's neat to finally see them come around. Also fun to see them with normal proportions.
One thing I'm loving in Gen 9 is that with the Exp. Candies from Tera Raids, along with having access to boxes anywhere, I can legitimately use a constantly rotating team and have their levels up to par with the rest of the team without that much effort.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
I find Emerald such an enjoyable game to replay, and I love the additional trainers on numerous routes to showcase the 2v1 tag battle feature that game. Emerald is one of the better localisations in the series, and a lot of these paired trainers have very amusing dialogues that often play off against each other. A particular favourite would be Bird Keeper Presley and Expert Aaron on Route 125:
Or the conspicuous difference between Felix and Dianne in Victory Road:
Or Cooltrainers Darcy and Jonathan and Experts Paxton and Makayla on Route 132:
(How were Jonathan and Makayla battling side by side without him seeing her...?)
Or the conspicuous difference between Felix and Dianne in Victory Road:
While looking up the names of the trainers in a text dump, I found a couple of other amusing trainer dialogues I liked:
Most people already know that Team Flare cribs off of Team Rocket, between showing up in the same cave where you get the regional fossils (Mt. Moon/Glittering Cave) and raiding the where Pokeballs are made (Silph Co/Pokeball Factory), but those aren't the only ways. They also disturb Pokemon burial grounds (Lavender Tower/ Kalos Route 10), infiltrate a power plant (The singular Rocket grunt in the Johto postgame/Kalos Power Plant), and agitate Pokemon through experiments (Lake of Rage/Frost Cavern).
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The Pokemon Stadium cries are super good. Hearing basically high-quality versions of the gb noises is cool. Pokemon Yellow Pikachu having the anime voice instead of the typical sounds is a really fun detail too.
Adding on to this, I just started Teal Mask and playing it semi-blind. I’m doing somewhat of an “Ash Ketchum” challenge where I boxed my entire main game team and am going to try and beat the DLC with only Pokemon I catch in Kitakami, and I like that vitamins/EV items are plentiful enough when playing in the postgame that I can raise an entire team from scratch this way and actually have a viable playthrough.
I like The gallade buff in gen9 with sharpness and sacred sword. Literally exactly what I imagined when I thought about givinga sig ability to my fav mons
I am a big fan of this buff as well. Sacred Sword (and a bunch of other slicing moves) pushes Gallade's power level up to a lot of the other fighters it was lagging behind like Urshifu and Great Tusk.