Yup, perfect example.
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Yup, perfect example.
ultra necrozmas base stat total is 754. this is an extremely specific number. why is it not 750? I think this might mean something. my best guess is that it is a bible reference. what do you think? am I going crazy?
not to be rude but........
like i already think that assuming certain BSTs are given to reach specific competitive VGC benchmarks are iffy, let alone this. i think they just like how some numbers look most of the time
Pokémon certainly uses BSTs for one purpose or another sometimes (600 BST signifies pseudos, all the UBs have prime numbers, etc. etc.)
As far as I can tell 754 doesn’t mean much, but I did find this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_754
Considering they went all maths nerd on having all the UBs be prime number BSTs, and that Ultra Necrozma is related to UBs but its BST isn’t a prime number, it’s possible that 754 was chosen because of this maths nerd thing linked above.
It’s far from certain, but also possible lol.
(For context it may be important to note that I understood roughly 0 of the words in the Wikipedia article, but it seems to be related to calculators.)
With some Pokemon they do aim for the BST but other times I think they just assign stats and the BST is what it is.
In this case, 754 probably doesn't have much meaning in the number itself. The actual meaning was likely wanting something in the 700s (since it's an "ultimate" Pokemon) combined with the fact that every single stat is a prime number and they wanted those offense numbers to be big (notably, 10 more than the primary offense stat of the previous forms) & the same and they wanted the 3 defensive stats to be the same (97 HP in particular is the one consistent thread across all 4 Necrozmas)
I think there's a version of necrozma where they go "maybe 127 speed" and we have 752 and it was just mostly arbitrary speed benchmarks that landed us at 754
e: Correction, Speed stat of 129 is not prime. I think they just wanted it arbitrarily faster while still being a funky number
In this case, 754 probably doesn't have much meaning in the number itself. The actual meaning was likely wanting something in the 700s (since it's an "ultimate" Pokemon) combined with the fact that every single stat is a prime number and they wanted those offense numbers to be big (notably, 10 more than the primary offense stat of the previous forms) & the same and they wanted the 3 defensive stats to be the same (97 HP in particular is the one consistent thread across all 4 Necrozmas)
I think there's a version of necrozma where they go "maybe 127 speed" and we have 752 and it was just mostly arbitrary speed benchmarks that landed us at 754
e: Correction, Speed stat of 129 is not prime. I think they just wanted it arbitrarily faster while still being a funky number
I would think that in most cases they focus more on the individual stats rather than the total number, since that in itself is largely inconsequential. A Pokémon with “a 780 BST” doesn’t mean anything other than “it has a lot of stat points to work with,” whereas the actual Attack, Defense, Speed, etc. stats themselves actually mean something in terms of how the Pokémon performs.
Now, obviously they do use some benchmarks. Sub-Legendaries typically hover around 570 or 580. Cover mascots usually sit at 680. IIRC, the final evolutions of Starters are never lower than 520. Late Bloomers are always 600. But naturally these are the kinds of deliberate subgroups that you would want some loose guidelines for (and even then, Legendaries have gotten a lot more flexible over the years).
But take, for instance, Zygarde’s Complete Forme. It has a 708 BST. Why 708? Why not an even 700? Well, it’s because of how it’s mechanic is supposed to work — Zygarde transforms into Complete Forme mid-battle, when its HP drops below half. Zygarde 50%’s HP stat is 108. Multiple that by 2, and you get Complete Forme’s HP stat: 216, which has the effect of giving Zygarde-C a massive health restoration in order to make it more usable (unlike Darmanitan Zen Mode). All its other stats stay the same (aside from Sp. Atk and Speed trading 10 points, probably to buff Core Enforcer). So what was originally a Pokémon with an even 600 BST ends up with 708 simply because of the sheer math that occurs when doubling its HP. 600 + 108 = 708.
In Ultra Necrozma’s case, there are also a few factors to consider. For one thing, let’s look at its spread:
97 / 167 / 97 / 167 / 97 / 129
One thing that is immediately clear is that they obviously wanted it to have equal defensive stats (97 in HP, Def, and Sp. Def) and equal offensive stats (167 in Atk and Sp. Atk). One possible reason for this is that Ultra Necrozma can come from Ultra Bursting either Dusk Mane (a physical attacker) or Dawn Wings (a special attacker), and they didn’t want it to handle differently depending on which fusion you were using.
With that in mind, there’s another thing to consider: prime numbers. All* of the Ultra Beasts, as well as the Cosmog family, share a gimmick of having base stats that are prime numbers. What this means is that the options for Necrozma’s stat points are actually limited to very specific numbers, with significant intervals between them. Let’s take a chunk of prime numbers that cover the breadth of Ultra Necrozma’s stats:
83, 89, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 113, 127, 131, 137, 139, 149, 151, 157, 163, 167, 173, 179
Assuming that they wanted Ultra Necrozma to have a 160+ base offense, but not a 170+, then they basically only have two choices: 163 and 167. They choose 167 (perhaps because base Necrozma is at 107 and 127 in those stats, meaning there’s a nice, round +60 and +40 increase, respectively, relative to base Necrozma), and because they want UN to have equal Atk and Sp. Atk, we necessarily add 167 to itself: 334.
Next up are the defensive stats. Now, for some reason, the developers generally avoid increasing a Pokemon’s HP stat via in-battle form changes. (Incidentally, Zygarde-C is one of the few exceptions.) Base Necrozma has an HP stat of 97, as do Dusk and Dawn. While that wasn’t strictly necessary, since DM and DW are out-of-battle form changes, we might infer that they simply liked how that particular HP stat (within the already limited field of prime numbers to choose from) prescribed Necrozma’s bulk. And since Dusk and Dawn have a 97 HP stat, Ultra Necrozma retains it since it’s an in-battle form change. Then, they take that same number and use it for the other defensive stats, because again, they want UN to handle universally regardless of whether Dusk or Dawn Necrozma is the underlying fusion. Relative to base Necrozma, this is a -4 in Defense and a +8 in Sp. Defense, so it’s not a huge difference compared to the original Necrozma’s bulk. So now we’ve got 97 x 3 = 291, and 291 + 334 = 625.
That leaves us with Ultra Necrozma’s Speed stat, which is the real enigma here. You may have noticed the asterisk that I put up above when I said that all* Ultra Space Pokémon have base stats that are prime numbers. Because this isn’t exactly true — there are a couple of exceptions: Naganadel (121), Dusk Mane and Dawn Wings Necrozma (77), and Ultra Necrozma (129).
I can’t really tell you why this is. My best guess would be that the developers care more about the impact of Speed in battles than they do about maintaining a numerical theme gimmick for a group of Pokémon… but in the context of USUM, in regards to Ultra Necrozma, I find that to be rather unconvincing. And the reason why is because 127 (a prime number) is right there, only 2 points down from 129, and of all the Pokémon available in USUM, the only ones that would Speed-tie or Speed-check Ultra Necrozma if it had a 127 Speed stat are Shaymin-S and Meloetta-P, respectively. Those are also the only two Pokémon that are specifically Speed-checked by UN having a base Speed of 129. And I just really, really don’t think Shaymin-S and Meloetta-P would be such determining factors in this situation. That’s the part that baffles me, but in any case, whether we take 127 or 129, and add it to 625, we get either 752 or 754 — neither of which is the even 750, but both are simply the natural consequence of all of these individual stat considerations.
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i think the answer is "these look like prime numbers at a glance and they might havent checked/noticed too late/thought itd still feel prime enough"
They all happen to be subprime numbers, though - Naganadel specifically being a prime power (11 squared). They might have done it to signify that those are special in some fashion (Naganadel is an evolved Pokémon, DM and DW are fusions, and UN is a special form), or they could’ve just goobered.
These two are the very last trade evolutions to have ever been made, and by extension they are also the last ones to be simple trade evos, since most of the ones we've had in generations past Gen 1 have been "trade holding this specific item". These guys are the first since the original four (Alakazam, Machamp, Golem, and Gengar) and the two Gen 5 expies inspired by them (Gigalith and Conkeldurr).
Trevenant and Gourgeist feel like a bit of an anomaly among the "normal" trade evos in that they're both two-stage Pokemon that evolve from relatively weak first-stage Pokemon.
This makes the thought process on how they decide who they want to be a trade evolution to be rather interesting. The original trade quartet seems to have been designed as three-stage lines disguised as your normal two-stage mons, where Abra, Machop, Geodude, and Gastly evolve once normally through level-up and then Alakazam, Machamp, Golem, and Gengar are sort of a prize for socializing with someone where they end up becoming *extremely* good with at least two really high stats that make them the strongest in one role. Gen 5 had Conkeldurr and Gigalith who are basically expies of Machamp and Golem since that gen's roster tried to replicate many of Gen 1's original concepts.
I am not really sure what they thought with making Gourgeist and Trevenant trade evolutions, however. Phantump and Pumpkaboo are standard wild spawns and will basically never evolve unless you trade with someone, I wonder why they felt Gourgeist and Trevenant were "special" enough like the original quartet to warrant needing this requirement of socializing with people to get them. I could speculate that maybe Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist having various sizes would make them enticing in trades and thus that's why it's a trade evo, but Trevenant on the other hand is...certainly an interesting choice to lock behind trading with friends.
I do wonder what's particularly special about these two among the trade evos, especially since they're designed quite differently from other trade evos in a few ways.
(Side note but I eagerly await the return of the Linking Cord in Legends Z-A so that these two will have a game where they can evolve without the need of a trade, and they can join the list of Linking Cord evolution users)
"It's been a while since we had regular trade evolutions. we should do that again" -> "Hey we made 2 sets of ghost/grass pokemon"
Much like a variety of other evolution methods (including the original trade evos for that matter) it just seems like they made an arbitrary decision later in development. Pumpkaboo & Gourgeist have a whole separate gimmick going on, Phantump doesn't have a gimmick at all and meanwhile Trevenant is just...available in the wild through normal means
see also: There's no real reason for Swirlix & Spritzee to not only be trade evolutions, but trade evolutions by item. But they introduced 2 VE pure fairies that had nominally related inspirations (taste, smell), so...why not, I guess.
Incidentally I kind of suspect that if they ever got over themselves with their dumb decisions about the hisui evolutions that Kleavor would be a trade evolution in a normal game to fully mirror Scizor.
Much like a variety of other evolution methods (including the original trade evos for that matter) it just seems like they made an arbitrary decision later in development. Pumpkaboo & Gourgeist have a whole separate gimmick going on, Phantump doesn't have a gimmick at all and meanwhile Trevenant is just...available in the wild through normal means
see also: There's no real reason for Swirlix & Spritzee to not only be trade evolutions, but trade evolutions by item. But they introduced 2 VE pure fairies that had nominally related inspirations (taste, smell), so...why not, I guess.
Incidentally I kind of suspect that if they ever got over themselves with their dumb decisions about the hisui evolutions that Kleavor would be a trade evolution in a normal game to fully mirror Scizor.
I don't know where else to post this but here goes
Here's a quote from Cyrus's PC in Pokemon Platinum:
According to myths, the Pokémon created Sinnoh with its power. However, capturing the Pokémon with a Poké Ball prevents it from using its full power... But with the Red Chain, the Pokémon can be shackled, and its power can be used without restraint...
===================================================================================================
My claim:
The only reason Poké Ball prevents Palkia/Dialga from using their full power was due to the significant lack of bond Cyrus had with the Pokémon. He doesn't care about bonding with anything. He hates the idea of it, and thus chooses to refrain as much as possible from having any sort of bond. This weakens a Pokémon the trainer owns.
The series has proven enough that a strong enough bond will allow a trainer and their Pokémon to achieve anything. Including but not exclusive to the ability to ease or prevent the pain of Mega Evolution, allow all Pokémon to unleash the full power of their attacks, reawaken the power of all things, overcome odds calculated to be impossible, break past the boundaries of time and space, overcome Arceus itself, and befriend all of Arceus's creations, making themselves an official Pokémon Master.
The Pixie Plate can be read, and has the following engraving: "The Original One is in all things. The Original One is nowhere at all."
The Legend Plate can be read, and has the following engraving: "From all creations, over all creations, does the Original One watch over all."
The connection between humans and Pokémon is one of the main aspects of Arceus itself, and because Arceus is in everything with the ability to watch over all, the plates are a part of Arceus, they're the source of all power, and the power of plates are shared among all Pokémon, all Pokémon contain the power of Arceus in them. All Pokémon hold the power of everything within them and are aspects of Arceus themselves. The more their bond grows, the more this power grows. At some point, this power even eclipses the main avatar Arceus made for itself as a Pokémon, allowing you to gain power over everything.
Here's a quote from Cyrus's PC in Pokemon Platinum:
According to myths, the Pokémon created Sinnoh with its power. However, capturing the Pokémon with a Poké Ball prevents it from using its full power... But with the Red Chain, the Pokémon can be shackled, and its power can be used without restraint...
===================================================================================================
My claim:
The only reason Poké Ball prevents Palkia/Dialga from using their full power was due to the significant lack of bond Cyrus had with the Pokémon. He doesn't care about bonding with anything. He hates the idea of it, and thus chooses to refrain as much as possible from having any sort of bond. This weakens a Pokémon the trainer owns.
The series has proven enough that a strong enough bond will allow a trainer and their Pokémon to achieve anything. Including but not exclusive to the ability to ease or prevent the pain of Mega Evolution, allow all Pokémon to unleash the full power of their attacks, reawaken the power of all things, overcome odds calculated to be impossible, break past the boundaries of time and space, overcome Arceus itself, and befriend all of Arceus's creations, making themselves an official Pokémon Master.
The Pixie Plate can be read, and has the following engraving: "The Original One is in all things. The Original One is nowhere at all."
The Legend Plate can be read, and has the following engraving: "From all creations, over all creations, does the Original One watch over all."
| Games | Description |
|---|---|
| LA | A stone tablet imbued with the essence of all creation. When used on a certain Pokémon, it allows that Pokémon to gain the power of every type there is. |
The connection between humans and Pokémon is one of the main aspects of Arceus itself, and because Arceus is in everything with the ability to watch over all, the plates are a part of Arceus, they're the source of all power, and the power of plates are shared among all Pokémon, all Pokémon contain the power of Arceus in them. All Pokémon hold the power of everything within them and are aspects of Arceus themselves. The more their bond grows, the more this power grows. At some point, this power even eclipses the main avatar Arceus made for itself as a Pokémon, allowing you to gain power over everything.
These two are the very last trade evolutions to have ever been made, and by extension they are also the last ones to be simple trade evos, since most of the ones we've had in generations past Gen 1 have been "trade holding this specific item". These guys are the first since the original four (Alakazam, Machamp, Golem, and Gengar) and the two Gen 5 expies inspired by them (Gigalith and Conkeldurr).
Trevenant and Gourgeist feel like a bit of an anomaly among the "normal" trade evos in that they're both two-stage Pokemon that evolve from relatively weak first-stage Pokemon.
This makes the thought process on how they decide who they want to be a trade evolution to be rather interesting. The original trade quartet seems to have been designed as three-stage lines disguised as your normal two-stage mons, where Abra, Machop, Geodude, and Gastly evolve once normally through level-up and then Alakazam, Machamp, Golem, and Gengar are sort of a prize for socializing with someone where they end up becoming *extremely* good with at least two really high stats that make them the strongest in one role. Gen 5 had Conkeldurr and Gigalith who are basically expies of Machamp and Golem since that gen's roster tried to replicate many of Gen 1's original concepts.
I am not really sure what they thought with making Gourgeist and Trevenant trade evolutions, however. Phantump and Pumpkaboo are standard wild spawns and will basically never evolve unless you trade with someone, I wonder why they felt Gourgeist and Trevenant were "special" enough like the original quartet to warrant needing this requirement of socializing with people to get them. I could speculate that maybe Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist having various sizes would make them enticing in trades and thus that's why it's a trade evo, but Trevenant on the other hand is...certainly an interesting choice to lock behind trading with friends.
I do wonder what's particularly special about these two among the trade evos, especially since they're designed quite differently from other trade evos in a few ways.
(Side note but I eagerly await the return of the Linking Cord in Legends Z-A so that these two will have a game where they can evolve without the need of a trade, and they can join the list of Linking Cord evolution users)
Trevenant isn't even properly locked behind trades, which makes things even weirder. It's catchable regularly in XY.
So this is perhaps less a mystery and more a "missed opportunity" because it's something I'm fairly confident think next year's L:ZA will bring back in some capacity, but it's truly bizarre how little exposure Pokeball Vivillon has had.
It was distributed on a couple of occasions in Gen VI, and that's it. All the other forms are available, but this hasn't ever returned in any way. It's not available in ScVi or through Pokemon Go (yet).
But what's really weird is that it was never really promoted outside of that one event. It's never shown up in the anime to my knowledge, and it only appears as a very brief cameo at the end of the XY chapter alongside every other Vivillon pattern. You'd at least expect it to cameo in "world of Pokemon sequences" where we see a bunch of different Vivillon but nope, nothing. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a lot of people probably don't know it exists at all.
It was distributed on a couple of occasions in Gen VI, and that's it. All the other forms are available, but this hasn't ever returned in any way. It's not available in ScVi or through Pokemon Go (yet).
But what's really weird is that it was never really promoted outside of that one event. It's never shown up in the anime to my knowledge, and it only appears as a very brief cameo at the end of the XY chapter alongside every other Vivillon pattern. You'd at least expect it to cameo in "world of Pokemon sequences" where we see a bunch of different Vivillon but nope, nothing. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a lot of people probably don't know it exists at all.
Pokeball Vivillon my absolute favorite.
This comment in the “little things you like” thread got me thinking again about a post I’d been meaning to make regarding the whole Azure Flute controversy, summarizing some insights that I picked up a few years ago from a Twitter user by the name of AdeptCharon, and combining them with some of my own thoughts.
Fans have dogged on Junichi Masuda’s answer for why the Flute was never distributed for over a decade now, because it does seem rather silly on the face of it — what’s so complicated about getting the Flute and going to Mt. Coronet, especially when that’s essentially how all of the previous Mythical events had worked? It’s even more baffling in light of several of the series’s other convoluted encounter methods, such as Feebas, Spiritomb, and the Regi trio.
But… there are some layers of historical context here that are worth considering.
The first being that this particular quote from Masuda comes from an interview posted by Nintendo World Report in September 2013, in the lead-up to X & Y’s release. For the sake of being comprehensive, the exact exchange is as follows:
> NWR: How come the Azure Flute was never made available in Diamond/Pearl/Platinum?
> JM: When we were first developing the games we thought about including it. I thought it would be fun. But once the game was complete and released, I changed my mind down the road and didn’t think it would be – I thought it would be confusing for people and kind of hard to understand how it worked. So I eventually made the decision not to distribute it.
Now, the thing that has always stood out to me is, this interview is mostly about X & Y, because those were the most recent upcoming games at the time. The inquiry about the Azure Flute is just a point of general curiosity thrown in toward the end. So, given that the subject of the interview was clearly meant to be the imminent release of X & Y, not random bits of cutting room floor trivia, I would not entirely discount the possibility that Masuda simply threw out a very broad answer to an unusually niche, off-topic question that he likely wouldn’t have expected to be asked.
But even if that wasn’t the case, there is still a more important bit of history to remember. Recall how I said, “that’s how all of the previous Mythical events had worked.” The thing is… that’s not entirely accurate.
Sure, in FRLG and Emerald, we had events that required the player to download a special item, which they would then take to one of the ship docks in order to receive passage to a hidden area where they could battle and capture the Mythical Pokémon.
Diamond & Pearl contained similar programming infrastructure for three such Pokémon: Darkrai (using the Member Card), Shaymin (using Oak’s Letter), and Arceus (using the Azure Flute). And we know that Darkrai and Shaymin got their respective events, so why not Arceus?
The answer? Because Diamond & Pearl were broke as fuck, lmao.
It’s fairly well-known by now that Diamond & Pearl have quite a few significant glitches. One in particular, the surf glitch, actually makes it possible for players to travel to Newmoon Island and the Flower Paradise, where they can then capture Darkrai and Shaymin without ever receiving the Member Card or Oak’s Letter. And if you were to obtain those items later, after catching those Pokémon illegitimately, the Pokémon themselves would not respawn, making it so that the item you downloaded does not work as advertised. This is even more important to note in the context of Japanese events, which had come to act as tie-in events for upcoming animated films. The way it worked in Japan (and this was back when the Japanese versions of the games also released months in advance of the worldwide versions, so Japanese players were also the first to experience these events) was, you would buy a ticket to go see the movie, and at the cinema, you would be able to download the event Pokémon or item.
As an apparent result of this issue, Darkrai and Shaymin weren’t ever distributed for Diamond & Pearl via the intended method. All distributions of those two for Diamond & Pearl were a direct pick-up at a Pokémon Center, instead of receiving the Member Card or Oak’s Letter and then traveling to the corresponding location. That way, anyone who purchased a ticket to see those films would still be able to receive the tie-in promotion that had been advertised, even if they had exploited the glitch to obtain Darkrai and Shaymin prematurely.
It wasn’t until the release of Platinum, which fixed the surf glitch (at least insofar as making it so that those Pokémon wouldn’t spawn without the player owning their corresponding event items), that the Member Card and Oak’s Letter were released. Which makes sense — Darkrai and Shaymin had already been made available through previous events for Diamond & Pearl, and with that glitch patched, Game Freak and the Pokémon Company could now rest assured that players downloading the Member Card or Oak’s Letter would not run into the potential problem of participating in an event in which the intended experience may have been undermined by a glitch.
That leads us to Arceus, and the Azure Flute. Arceus was finally distributed after the release of HeartGold & SoulSilver, as a tie-in promotion for the film Arceus and the Jewel of Life. By this point, Diamond & Pearl were still the Generation 4 games with the largest install base, and unlike Darkrai and Shaymin, Arceus hadn’t been released for Diamond & Pearl prior to this distribution. This was the first time that anybody would have been able to get their hands on one legitimately.
But here’s the rub: By now, Diamond & Pearl players had been trained to understand Mythical event distributions a certain way — they buy a movie ticket, they go to the theater, they download the Pokémon, and pick it up at the Pokémon Center. While Platinum players may have been able to experience the Member Card and Oak’s Letter events as intended, they were not the majority.
So now, for the first distribution of Arceus, it seems probable that instead of hosting two separate events for the two different games (which might have been deemed confusing for players, particularly younger ones, and perhaps needlessly complicated on a technical end for the distribution partners), and instead of having the event work contrary to what Diamond & Pearl players had grown accustomed to (by having to download an item and then take it to Mt. Coronet, instead of just picking the Pokémon up at the Pokémon Center), Game Freak and/or the Pokémon Company decided to standardize the distribution for all players, by foregoing the Azure Flute step and simply distributing the Arceus directly. After all, the Pokémon itself is really the focus of the event, more than the steps to obtain it, so it’s not as if bypassing the Hall of Origin encounter is a huge loss in the grand scheme of things.
I think it’s entirely possible — even quite likely — that this is the sort of problem that Masuda was alluding to when explaining why the Flute was never distributed, rather than because he thinks players are too dumb to find their way back to the Spear Pillar, and that he probably didn’t want to hash out all of those internal politics just to answer a frivolous question in an interview about X & Y. And indeed, the very next games that Masuda directed after Diamond & Pearl still included one of these “event item leads to an encounter” examples of distribution, in the form of the Liberty Pass, which was made accessible to players.
Fast-forward to 2021, and I think this conclusion is perhaps even more vindicated by how the event distributions were handled for Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl — games where the only Game Freak employee even involved in their production was Junichi Masuda himself. Not only were the Member Card and Oak’s Letter events distributed as they were meant to be (which, notably, was actually the first time that Diamond & Pearl’s (admittedly less-interesting) version of the Oak’s Letter event was made legitimately accessible) since, again, the surf glitch was now accounted for, but so was the Azure Flute event, as a bonus tie-in for completing Legends: Arceus. And nothing about the Azure Flute event was changed, aside from receiving the item in your house instead of at the Pokémon Center. There are no added tooltips, no pop-up instructions, no revised item descriptions telling you to take the Flute to Mt. Coronet, which in my mind, at least, casts some doubt on the idea that that was ever the confusing part, unless Masuda changed his mind at some point in the intervening years (which is a possibility, to be fair).
I saw this mentioned in passing when Z-A was revealed, but didn't think too much about it until seeing the soundtrack for Legends Arceus....
So we all know that Pokemon's logos in Japan are different from the western/international logo, they use the actual japanese characters for its logo and then tweak the style for each game. You've probably sen people complain about how static our logo is in comparison.
If Japanese titles use "our" logo, it's usually for different stuff. Pokemon Go (& accessories), Pokemon Unite, the TCG's used it since ~2002, Home, and so on. Notably it's just spinoffs and accessories; and even then there's a fair number that use "their" logo instead (Colosseum, Detective Pikachu, Cafe Remix, etc). But never the main games
Except
The Legends games specifically use "our" logo, and not just the Pokemon part but the Legends part
Hell the extremely stylized Z feels like it matches "our" Pokemon font rather rather than being its own thing like the X, Y and A are.
With the other use of the logo, it does seem to be some attempt at global synergy (especially the fact the TCG shifted over to it) that probably alleviates some cross-promotion localization woes but as a main game Legends doesn't really need that and it's not really a "western" appealed subseries (especially when the first one was aggressively Japanese in its stylings). If any of the games did it I'd have expected Let's Go since it really really really wanted overlap with the Go audience, but no they use the standard logo
Kind of weird, right? I wonder why.
Also it's funny that the only 2 games that do anything to mess with "our" Pokemon Logo's coloring are the ones that Japan also uses.
So we all know that Pokemon's logos in Japan are different from the western/international logo, they use the actual japanese characters for its logo and then tweak the style for each game. You've probably sen people complain about how static our logo is in comparison.
If Japanese titles use "our" logo, it's usually for different stuff. Pokemon Go (& accessories), Pokemon Unite, the TCG's used it since ~2002, Home, and so on. Notably it's just spinoffs and accessories; and even then there's a fair number that use "their" logo instead (Colosseum, Detective Pikachu, Cafe Remix, etc). But never the main games
Except
The Legends games specifically use "our" logo, and not just the Pokemon part but the Legends part
Hell the extremely stylized Z feels like it matches "our" Pokemon font rather rather than being its own thing like the X, Y and A are.
With the other use of the logo, it does seem to be some attempt at global synergy (especially the fact the TCG shifted over to it) that probably alleviates some cross-promotion localization woes but as a main game Legends doesn't really need that and it's not really a "western" appealed subseries (especially when the first one was aggressively Japanese in its stylings). If any of the games did it I'd have expected Let's Go since it really really really wanted overlap with the Go audience, but no they use the standard logo
Kind of weird, right? I wonder why.
Also it's funny that the only 2 games that do anything to mess with "our" Pokemon Logo's coloring are the ones that Japan also uses.
(I'm realizing now that my reaction to this post is just an intrusive thought that I probably don't need to share, but I've got all these words written out now so I might as well post it
)I know the point here is that it was important that the events to tie the Pokémon with their movie worked as advertised and that there wouldn't be any repercussions for the company if someone tried to go after them for false advertising, but the thing is, I can't think of a way that would let someone glitch their way to Darkrai/Shaymin and then actually have footing to stand on in an actual legal battle.
This specifically focuses on people who knowingly used the Surf glitch to access those two mythicals early (because, let's face it, the odds of getting to one of them without following a guide with the glitch are absurdly slim). I'm not considering hacked encounters with these Pokémon, because AFAIK, it's illegal in Japan to modify your game using an external device (and if it's not illegal-illegal, you're probably voiding your right to contend with the creator of said game in court). I'm the sort of person who would absolutely take their chance using a glitch like that to get the Mythical Pokémon, but then understand that that would prevent the intended event from working later. Let's say someone didn't understand that it would work this way, or that they performed the glitch with that knowledge and still want to pull one over on Game Freak for this false advertising. How are you going to try and show that you never actually encountered the Pokémon in your game before?
If your Pokédex lacks any data for Darkrai/Shaymin (it's not even Seen), then the event should work as intended. If your Pokédex shows the Mythical in question as Seen, but not Caught, you would have had to perform the glitch to encounter and fight it, but not capture it. Can't even use the excuse of someone trading it to you, because that would mark it as Caught. If the Pokédex shows it as Caught, it's a little tricky. If someone traded one to you but then you traded it back (so the Pokémon isn't in your game anymore), the event should work as intended (the only reasons I can think of that it wouldn't would be from corrupted data transfer during the Mystery Gift, or that some other flag in-game triggered the Mythical encounter unintentionally, but I haven't actually heard of either of these happening). Otherwise, you used the glitch to access the Mythical, caught it, and thus you wouldn't be able to encounter another. For all of these cases, cheating devices could be used to change the encounter status in the Pokédex, but then you would have modified your save data.
All of this is to say that I think Game Freak/TPC was smart to alter the distribution methods to account for the Surf glitch, allowing them to avoid any farcical court case. I guess the big problem with a legal battle is that it would involve many individual property owners and needing to consider the status of all of their saves/possible use of cheating devices, and the sheer number of people involved would make dealing with it not worth the hassle (even if, legally, the companies would likely have an extremely solid defense). Trying to preempt legal action from consumers had they actually released the event items as opposed to the Pokémon would force them to acknowledge the glitch and some of the basics of how it was performed, which would probably not be wise (even if the easy version for performing the glitch was only possible on the first Japanese release).
I'm not behind an enormous media franchise and I probably don't respect the scope of legal action this would entail, but I'm of the opinion that they should have just released the items and put out some statement that, if you used them and there was no Pokémon to be found, you accessed the Pokémon through cheating beforehand. They're one-per-save-file and you already encountered it. If you want to experience the event as intended, you can restart your save file.
Again, releasing the Pokémon themselves as opposed to the event items was absolutely the smart thing to do in their scenario; much easier and avoids unneeded legal fiascos, I get that. I would just rather be a little petty (and risk retaliation) and tell cheaters (of which I would likely be one had I had a version where door Surf worked) that you already had your chance to get them.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Arceus the one of the 3 Mythicals that (at the time) they couldn't actually get to capture with the glitch? It feels weird that that was the case of skipping the item if so, at least in Platinum where they still distributed the Darkrai/Shaymin versions later.
You couldn’t capture Arceus with the glitch. But what I’m saying is that they decided to skip the Azure Flute event because they wanted to ensure a consistent process and experience for all players, and DP’s glitchiness had already caused them to set a precedent.
They could have released a second Arceus event involving the Azure Flute for Platinum after the movie distribution, but then there’s the wrinkle that HGSS had already come out by that point, so releasing an event only for Platinum players — leaving out DP and HGSS players — is kind of awkward, and not consistent across the board. The Member Card and Oak’s Letter events for Platinum pre-dated HGSS’s Japanese release.
The wrinkle with that wrinkle is that the HoO Arceus has unique interaction alongside the regular Event Distribution Arceus in HGSS, the latter of which still required D/P/Pt to receive before sending to HGSS anyway. FR/LG continued to see shared event support even after Emerald came out for their Shared Event encounters, so it's not like the release of a new game has to mean abandon-ship on the previous one. Thematically there's even the idea that the second Arceus event would be a while later after Cynthia had already returned to Sinnoh, which funnily would kind of fit with the ida of ging back to Sinnoh for the HoO after HGSS were out, catching Arceus, and then coming back late to do the event a 2nd time.
And subjectively I think it'd be a MORE inconsistent process to do 2 of the Mythical Items in Platinum and then just forget the 3rd one if they already bothered starting item distributions, since it's not like there's consistency with all versions getting the same anyway.
HGSS had support built in for two separate Arceus instances so Gamefreak was clearly developing around multiple events. Given HG/SS released 3 years after DP and 2 after Platinum, I doubt they were unaware of the Surf Glitch for Darkrai and Shaymin even if no Arceus capture was reported by then. Sinjoh Ruins could have been a one-time deal that only responded to one Arceus with the Fateful Encounter flag (which is already what the game checks to distinguish from the HoO version to do the unused 2nd copy) as I doubt they lacked the time to simply remove the code that checks for non-FE Arceus. This one doesn't even have weird edge cases like CPU talked above for the capture since Arceus is the trigger for the event rather than the prize, so it's not like you must provably have both Arceus on your cartridge alongside the Level 1 Dragons (especially given the Arceus already have to be traded in and thus can be borrowed).
It's more likely one of the old relics of Pokemon's "seat of their pants" handling for events than anything particularly calculated for a "consistent" experience or precedent.
I wouldn't call this a mystery exactly, but what is UP with the SV Dex entries for the Florges line?
Why did they bother with a different entry for each color? Why are the Red and White entries so consistent while the other colors seem random between evolutions? Why is there no solid format between the various entries?
None of this is a serious question exactly, but it really seems like there was SOMETHING going on with whoever wrote/approved these. When I noticed the different entries, I was expecting the whole thing to be find/replace across the various evolutions, and they didn't do that, but what they did do is maddening.
(also, USUM has unique entries for Eternal Floette, despite it never being released and no other game(including XY) bothering. WHY?)
None of this is a serious question exactly, but it really seems like there was SOMETHING going on with whoever wrote/approved these. When I noticed the different entries, I was expecting the whole thing to be find/replace across the various evolutions, and they didn't do that, but what they did do is maddening.
(also, USUM has unique entries for Eternal Floette, despite it never being released and no other game(including XY) bothering. WHY?)
Vivillon's are similarly uniform with only a minor change. On the one hand it's good that they're bothering to give each form its own entry (which is obviously good for more differentiated forms like Wishiwashi et al) but they're just getting lazy and not making them that distinct.
I quite like that there’s no consistency and its not just c/p.
see my first crazy post in this thread. floette has a strong connection to the paldea region.
Interestingly the Paldea Gym Leaders are ordered differently whenever they come up as potential answers to a question, more specifically Kofu is 3rd instead of Iono and Grusha is 6th, moving up Ryme and Tulip
This is interesting for a few reasons, if their levels were adjusted to fit this order instead of the actual order you are intended to face them in then the disparity in team strength between them is smoothened out a bit with you facing Grusha and Kofu’s underwhelming teams for that point in the game earlier and Iono’s unusually powerfulteam ace later
It also makes sense if you look at their locations on the map, the common complaint of Tulip’s gym being in the perfect spot for an 8th gym when she is 7th is now void because she is 8th and the akward early to midgame zigzag from east to west is toned down a bit
This makes me think this was the original order they were designed for but marketing influence made them change it(?) as both Grusha and Iono were revealed before release and they wanted to make them more special so they changed up the order or something similar
sorry for the text wall, I just wanted to make a post about this and just kept rambling
This is interesting for a few reasons, if their levels were adjusted to fit this order instead of the actual order you are intended to face them in then the disparity in team strength between them is smoothened out a bit with you facing Grusha and Kofu’s underwhelming teams for that point in the game earlier and Iono’s unusually powerful
It also makes sense if you look at their locations on the map, the common complaint of Tulip’s gym being in the perfect spot for an 8th gym when she is 7th is now void because she is 8th and the akward early to midgame zigzag from east to west is toned down a bit
This makes me think this was the original order they were designed for but marketing influence made them change it(?) as both Grusha and Iono were revealed before release and they wanted to make them more special so they changed up the order or something similar
sorry for the text wall, I just wanted to make a post about this and just kept rambling