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SPOILERS! Mysteries and Conspiracies of Pokemon
- Thread starter stage7_4
- Start date
"That Pokemon" meaning "that was in the slot before"
Glameow's weird obscurity always bothered me as well. It was owned by a major character in the anime, but I had Diamond and no-one to trade with, so I couldn't get one.
I originally thought the main reason most fanmade Primeape evolutions had a more old master/sage look to them were just from its Sun dex entry.
However, I just found the first time Annihilape was teased by Khu...
Because of this amateur witness sketch, old bearded man Annihilape was the main subject of fan artists and leakers.
I get frankenstein-ing a leak with emoji is a way to keep copyright takedowns away, but I find it kinda weird the original leaker didn't include Annihilape's crazy hair and glowing red eyes since they're for more striking features and its slightly furrier body.
However, I just found the first time Annihilape was teased by Khu...
Because of this amateur witness sketch, old bearded man Annihilape was the main subject of fan artists and leakers.
I get frankenstein-ing a leak with emoji is a way to keep copyright takedowns away, but I find it kinda weird the original leaker didn't include Annihilape's crazy hair and glowing red eyes since they're for more striking features and its slightly furrier body.
Key word here being emojis.
Had they flipped the beard emoji they used for the body it would be a much better representation of Annihilape.
As for the red eyes, if you look at it from the front they are obscured by the front bangs so it's not completely wrong to have the "emoji" form have its eyes covered up.
When you look at the pokémon that learn Megahorn there's a bunch of stuff you'd expect like Heracross, Aggron, Samurott, Bouffalant,
And this big, round, hornless boy. He learns it by level up.
And this big, round, hornless boy. He learns it by level up.
The answer to that is surprisingly simple
On Clodsire's back are sharp spines which it can actually stick out and use as spikes if need be. It is these things that it uses to use Megahorn most likely, even if they're not exactly horns. These spikes are likely also how it uses Poison Jab.
Pretty sure that was the other leaker, not Khu.
Probably because Glameow is pretty much never available. In Pearl, it's like a mid-game encounter in an optional encounter and also Purugly sucks. And then they lock it until the postgame for every game until the remakes. Luxray was the same, but Luxray was a popular early-game encounter, people actually used that thing. I think Venomoth had it worse, but gen 1, am I right?
It really is something else that Glameow finally came back for a readily available main game portion and both of those were out of obligation: Shining Pearl the remake and Legends Arceus the dp throwback.
Venomoth also had a bit of obligation syndrome, but I think the context of those obligations makes it less weird. Like yeah it "needed" to be in GSC, but it was still readily available within it; it was still there. Yeah it "needed" to be in the remakes, but it still managed to get 3 remake appeareances over the course of 3 separate generations across 10 years. It also got to be in XD. And it wasn't version exclusive like Glameow was for Gen 4 (it was also White 2 only in BW2 but there was the dream world).
Skiddo was the one that was basically on the cusp of overtaking it if it weren't for SV. You could only get a Skiddo at all in XY until SV. It just didn't stand out as much as Glameow because of their relative age but gen 8 was basically loading the gun.
Venomoth also had a bit of obligation syndrome, but I think the context of those obligations makes it less weird. Like yeah it "needed" to be in GSC, but it was still readily available within it; it was still there. Yeah it "needed" to be in the remakes, but it still managed to get 3 remake appeareances over the course of 3 separate generations across 10 years. It also got to be in XD. And it wasn't version exclusive like Glameow was for Gen 4 (it was also White 2 only in BW2 but there was the dream world).
Skiddo was the one that was basically on the cusp of overtaking it if it weren't for SV. You could only get a Skiddo at all in XY until SV. It just didn't stand out as much as Glameow because of their relative age but gen 8 was basically loading the gun.
So TCG's been around for ages and especially in the last couple generations has leaned harder on the actual character part of the game. Obviously most of those favor the "major" characters (bosses, important story characters, etc) but like I mentioned in the things i like thread, even more obscure characters like Daisy have gotten a card now and you can find a few examples like her throughout the series' history.
But one character, or set of characters, that surprises me in never getting a card of any sort are the Kimono Girls
As far as these "quasi-important" characters go I think they rank up there for a few reasons:
-They have a very distinct design, and were one of the few trainer classes to get official art back in the day.
-You MUST encounter them in the story of GSC to get Surf
-They got increased story encounters & importance in HGSS
-They got TWO episodes in the anime! Plus another cameo
-A whole dedicated webisode
-Eevee trainers. Especially in the modern era, Pokemon loves leaning on Eevee so you'd think this would be a slam dunk.
But surprisingly no cards at all. The GSC-era wasn't super big on trainer cards in general, though even Mary got a card; in fact she wound up getting another in the Expedition-era and a third in the EX era. But the HGSS era? Where they became even more important? The era that gave Sages (not even the Elder, who had a unique trainer class), the Flower Shop Girl, and Copycat cards?? And its not like the modern era fully shies away from looking on the past, you'll see random trainers crop up here & there even outside of Character Rares
But really this is a backdoor to my thoughts on: it's just indecipherable what the TCG decides to and to not make into a card, even when it makes sense to. Like hey here's a fun couple of factoids:
-Silver did not get a card until Crobat V got a character rare reprint. Yep! Not even in the Japanese-only VS set
-Red & Blue also did not get cards until around Masters. Red's first card was the August 2018 "Red's Pikachu" promo (after which he got a few more cards with the Let's Go focused sets), and Blue didn't get a card.
-Despite appearing in Let's Go, which had multiple sets dedicated to it, and numerous Rocket cards over the years, Archer has never had a card. Neither has Ariana. Petrel & Proton got a card (singular, they shared it using their stock art; HGSS era) but not the 2 bigger bosses; the closest they've come to getting cards is when they were nameless Rocket Executives and were on the Rocket's Evil Deeds cards.
-Despite using normal trainer class sprites (Lanette actually had a unique overworld sprite at the time, even if her design was different in the TCG), Bebe & Cassius DID get their own cards.
-I buried the lede on Red's card; he was the first protagonist to get a proper card at all with his Promo. Until then the only time a protagonist appeared in a card was Dawn making a background cameo in a card focusing on her mother (Anime!May and Anime!Dawn had some promotional cards). Masters clearly got them to rethink the marketing power of their characters; these quite a few of them have dedicated cards and barring that will get Character Rares.
-If you were curious, the current player characters to not have a focused card (named after them or prominent in the artwork) on them are Ethan, Kris, Lyra, Hilbert, Hilda, Elio (Sun boy), Elaine (let's go girl), Chase (let's go boy), & the SV Kids (but the SV era is still young; if nothing else we'll probably get a Friends of Paldea at some point).
-Also technically Leaf? Leaf's situation is weird, the FRLG design is referred to as Leaf in merchandise and in Masters but her counterpart in Let's Go (who did get a card) is Green (Blue in Japan, obviously). And "Green" DID get a card, but "Leaf" has not.
-2 of the 4 Furisode girls got cards, well after they showed up in XY. One of them is even playable in Masters....Kimono girls in shambles over here
-So many cards based on random trainer classes or characters who aren't even really characters, but will overlook other actual characters,
If there winds up being a Johto follow up to the Pokemon 151 TCG set, I can see some of these Johto gaps being filled in, but in general the TCG's relationship with characters...a little mysterious.
But one character, or set of characters, that surprises me in never getting a card of any sort are the Kimono Girls
As far as these "quasi-important" characters go I think they rank up there for a few reasons:
-They have a very distinct design, and were one of the few trainer classes to get official art back in the day.
-You MUST encounter them in the story of GSC to get Surf
-They got increased story encounters & importance in HGSS
-They got TWO episodes in the anime! Plus another cameo
-A whole dedicated webisode
-Eevee trainers. Especially in the modern era, Pokemon loves leaning on Eevee so you'd think this would be a slam dunk.
But surprisingly no cards at all. The GSC-era wasn't super big on trainer cards in general, though even Mary got a card; in fact she wound up getting another in the Expedition-era and a third in the EX era. But the HGSS era? Where they became even more important? The era that gave Sages (not even the Elder, who had a unique trainer class), the Flower Shop Girl, and Copycat cards?? And its not like the modern era fully shies away from looking on the past, you'll see random trainers crop up here & there even outside of Character Rares
But really this is a backdoor to my thoughts on: it's just indecipherable what the TCG decides to and to not make into a card, even when it makes sense to. Like hey here's a fun couple of factoids:
-Silver did not get a card until Crobat V got a character rare reprint. Yep! Not even in the Japanese-only VS set
-Red & Blue also did not get cards until around Masters. Red's first card was the August 2018 "Red's Pikachu" promo (after which he got a few more cards with the Let's Go focused sets), and Blue didn't get a card.
-Despite appearing in Let's Go, which had multiple sets dedicated to it, and numerous Rocket cards over the years, Archer has never had a card. Neither has Ariana. Petrel & Proton got a card (singular, they shared it using their stock art; HGSS era) but not the 2 bigger bosses; the closest they've come to getting cards is when they were nameless Rocket Executives and were on the Rocket's Evil Deeds cards.
-Despite using normal trainer class sprites (Lanette actually had a unique overworld sprite at the time, even if her design was different in the TCG), Bebe & Cassius DID get their own cards.
-I buried the lede on Red's card; he was the first protagonist to get a proper card at all with his Promo. Until then the only time a protagonist appeared in a card was Dawn making a background cameo in a card focusing on her mother (Anime!May and Anime!Dawn had some promotional cards). Masters clearly got them to rethink the marketing power of their characters; these quite a few of them have dedicated cards and barring that will get Character Rares.
-If you were curious, the current player characters to not have a focused card (named after them or prominent in the artwork) on them are Ethan, Kris, Lyra, Hilbert, Hilda, Elio (Sun boy), Elaine (let's go girl), Chase (let's go boy), & the SV Kids (but the SV era is still young; if nothing else we'll probably get a Friends of Paldea at some point).
-Also technically Leaf? Leaf's situation is weird, the FRLG design is referred to as Leaf in merchandise and in Masters but her counterpart in Let's Go (who did get a card) is Green (Blue in Japan, obviously). And "Green" DID get a card, but "Leaf" has not.
-2 of the 4 Furisode girls got cards, well after they showed up in XY. One of them is even playable in Masters....Kimono girls in shambles over here
-So many cards based on random trainer classes or characters who aren't even really characters, but will overlook other actual characters,
If there winds up being a Johto follow up to the Pokemon 151 TCG set, I can see some of these Johto gaps being filled in, but in general the TCG's relationship with characters...a little mysterious.
I wonder if maybe card effects has anything to do with character selection. Most Trainer Cards effect don't usually have anything to do with the character depicted. This makes me believe the effects they want are thought of first (or decide to make a new card with that effect, possibly to replace old cards who set just got pushed out of legal tournament use). Some are put aside for character cards and this is where questions of the selection process occurs. Things also get complicated as, due to the introduction of Full Art Cards, this very likely has affected which characters get a card nowadays, a factor which didn't previously exist.
For now I'll stick with the oddity of the Kimono Girls bot getting a card, yet the Flower Shop Lady did. Flower Shop Lady got a card during the HGSS era, so at the very least she just didn't get a card out of the blue. Of course, FSL is still pretty minor while Kimono Girls are major, having a even bigger role in HGSS. So what's the deal?
I wonder if that bigger important for these set of characters could maybe be a factor in them not getting cards, as well as them being a set of them. Going through my thinking:
- A Group of 5: SO, we have five Kimono Girls, each named and using a different Eeveelution. Do you just make one card featuring all of them? Do you make a card for each of them? Do you make 2 or 3 cards and have them just paired up? Do you ignore the individuals and focus on the Kimono Girl class, one card with artwork based on the sprite in the game they all use? Though the TCG artists are restricted to just using the official art, and as we've seen in animated appearances they're given different style and color kimonos which I'd imagine a TCG artist would also want to do.
- Eeveelution Cameo: Of course we can't ignore that they could just appear in a Pokemon's artwork. And being Eeveelution users this should be a cinch, they're popular Pokemon always getting new cards. But, once again we run into the kimono design question: base it on the sprite in the games or give them all original designs? AND now we have Leageon, Glaceon, and Sylveon; do they get new Kimono Girls or something unique is done for them (like they'd do for Eevee).
- "We'll get to them later": And finally, they could be unfortunate victims of "we'll get to them later" and they never go back to them. They think they would, as mentioned their one of the most notable NPCs in the Johto games, but the above factors I mentioned could make the card creators decide they deserve their own discussion time so get a "circle back to" pin on the blackboard... AND then the card creators work out all the details before getting back to them. Oh well, "next time".
However, I think the Full Art Cards could maybe be what finally gives them a TCG card. We just gotta wait for a Johto focused expansion, and once we do: Kimono Girl card... WITH FIVE Full Art Card alts! Maybe even use their most recent appearance in the Evolutions special as their design and what they're doing in the art.
So this is either a potential game mystery or a coding mishap, but I wanted to address this. Within the Asada desert, along where you can find Great Tusk/Treads, is this circle of rocks. Something weird I noticed about said rocks is that your Mirai/Koraidon can't climb them. Any of the rocks in the circle for that matter. You can land on them by jumping off the larger climbable cliff on the far right image.
I also noticed that they don't seem to be spawn points for pokemon and that wild mons tend to avoid them unless you draw aggro toward them. While this may be a coding oversight, I also realized that you can scale some buildings with your mount, which seemed off.
The only surface that acts like these rocks do in game is the unclimbable "mountain" in the north, that is acting as an invisible barrier or what we can assume is the future DLC. So it got me thinking. Either GF coded all these rocks incorrectly for some reason OR they could be acting as placeholders in game for something coming later. I also thought they could be acting as some weird barrier that Tusk/treads can't cross, but all my findings show these mons move in a loop until interacted with.
In addition to this oddity, there's also the fact that the currently known escaped Paradox Pokemon hangs around them.
Now before we go into any wild speculation, it could just be this is simply a "stage" and nothing else. Sure, Quaking Earth (QE) is programmed to just go in a loop so the rocks aren't being used to wrangle the AI, but the rocks do serve as an eye-catching spot. I'm going to assume a lot of players noticed these strange ring of rocks which QE just so happened to be by. No matter where you initiate the initial battle with QE, you'll likely have some of these rocks in the background. Why can't you climb them? Taking this dismissive approach, two thoughts come to mind: (1) You're supposed to be focusing on QE, not the rocks. You get on your 'Raidon and chase QE, not climb on the rocks to do an ambush jump. (2) I could see the rocks being added in later, possibly the last rocks placed in the desert. This is to make sure they knew what QE's path was going to be thus place the rocks where it won't run into them. And they simply forgot/didn't care to make these rocks climbable because they aren't hiding anything on top of them nor could you use them to get to a higher place.
Now with that done, let's get back to my point that we have a Paradox Pokemon randomly here. And not just any Paradox Pokemon, one of the most GROUNDED Paradox Pokemon. Area Zero is a crater, with the only known way out is FLYING. So, how did QE escape? Could it be maybe these ring of rocks serve as an indication of a secret path connected to Area Zero? Maybe in one of the DLCs a plot point will be brought up that there are actually a few places which, under the right circumstances, have a direct connection with Area Zero allowing Pokemon from outside travel in and inside travel out. And after doing the one the DLC introduced, we're allowed to seek out ones which are around Paldea, and one is these ring of rocks (why can't we climb them? Maybe in order to open a path these rocks need to move or go away thus they didn't bother program them with climbing data).
Oh, and where there's a Titan Pokemon there's also Herba Mystica (HM). You know, it's odd thinking about it. HM is from Area Zero, infact the Scarlet/Violet Book says the ones find around Paldea were planted there... and then eaten by wild Pokemon who became Titan Pokemon (oops). Yet, there was something a bit odd about the HM the player and Arven found: It was hidden inside a sealed off chamber which only became accessible when the Titan Pokemon sniffed it out and bashed it open (so if all HM on the surface were planted by people, how did these get in there? Infact after finding these the only way to get more is from Tera Raids). Said caves we're also not allowed to go back into, though the HM wasn't the only (glowing) plant in there, there was also glowing moss. AND, despite being from Area Zero, we don't recall ever seeing any HM growing in Area Zero (I'd imagine if we did Arven would have also pointed it out). Maybe there's more to HM that's yet to be revealed.
This actually makes me wonder in turn, if the HM originate from the Area Zero crater, why do we not see any Titan sized Pokemon down there? I get for gameplay purposes that they're limited to high rank raids, but theoretically shouldn't we see a couple other Titan sized Pokemon down there if the Herba grow there naturally? Is it possible the HM just don't work that way in their natural form and had to be cultivated or selectively bred to achieve what we see from the Titans (akin to how humans bred for specific strains of things like Bananas or other fruits to suit commercial sale)?
Alternate theory: maybe they are feeding on them and it's part of the concern of their escape (i.e. if a Roaring Moon gets big enough it could fly itself out on its own power)?
In regards to this thought, remember that there are TWO doors at the outpost prior to entering Area Zero and the player just happens to go down the Right path. It was long speculated that the Left area would be DLC. In addition, despite the fact that Area Zero is vast, it's the only map zone where the player icon doesn't move on the map. So my guess is that the Right path is simply a much smaller area compared to the whole crater and in the Left path is where the Herba Mystica are. And if that is also where Tarapagos is, then the two may be linked.
Why does Bruno have Onix in almost all of his teams? AFAIK his FRLG and HGSS rematch teams are the only ones where he doesn't use at least 1, and in the former it's only because they both evolved. It's neither good nor Fighting type and it's not like Kanto doesn't have other fighting types for him to use.
Was a theory I read ages ago that Bruno was originally going to be the first gym leader but looked too tough or strong so they made Brock as a mini Bruno and they kept Bruno having an Onix
Not the theory I've seen, which was that Onix was meant to be better but then they realised Brock didn't have a big boss so they repurposed Onix for that and then just didn't change Bruno's team.