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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
That reminds me of the lack of fire types and electric types in Diamond and Pearl. Flint and Volkner had to be given other Pokemon, which in my opinion, were very weird choices.
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One reason I like going for the Fire-type starter (aside from personal prefrence), Fire-types are generally rarer than Grass- and Water-types. Which makes sense, but still if you don't pick the Fire-type starter you generally have to dedicate yourself to finding another Fire-type while Water- and Grass-types you'll most of the time run into naturally (heck, you practically need at least one Water-type if anything to just be an HM slave for the four Water-type HMs).
I never had that much of a problem with them; at most it was just "Damn, I can't spam Staraptor to kill them all". Any common neutral type like water, electric, even dark or ghost can deal with em just fine.
Fire-types being so relatively much rarer than Water- and Grass-types is, in my opinion, a bit of a symptom of lazy design. Okay, intuitively there are way more biomes that lend themselves to Grass- and Water-types (Water Pokémon can be found anywhere near water, and grass types anywhere near plants), but Fire-type Pokémon don't have to be rare. Already in Gen I, it was established that a location doesn't have to be "fiery" for Fire-types to be found there. Vulpix and Growlithe hang out in random patches of grass, as do Ponyta. There really is no reason to keep Fire Pokémon rare, they can be placed in any random grass if the designers so wish.
Still, I guess it would be hard to excuse having a Fire Pokémon for every Grass and Water Pokémon out there. Water is treated as one huge biome (in reality it would be as many biomes in water as there is on land, but we humans generally can't distinguish them as anything other than "water", and plants in all shapes and sizes are found all over land. There is a huge variety of plants and aquatic creatures out there to draw inspiration from, whereas Fire Pokémon tend to be based on regular animals, just breathing fire. And you can't just take all the regular non-aquatic animals out there and make Fire types out of them, there are fifteen other elemental types that also need attention.
All in all, a Pokémon design based on a plant is almost guaranteed to make a good Grass type. A design based on an aquatic creature is almost always a Water type - in both cases, what else is there to do with the designs? But a design based on an animal can feasibly be turned into any of the eighteen types, including Grass and Water, so Fire has a lot of competition. Even dragons, which are traditionally seen as fire-breathing creatures, have their own type to "steal" designs away from the Fire type.
Besides fighting for the "generic" design bases, Water can claim near-exclusive rights to anything living in or near seas, ponds, rivers or oceans. Grass can claim exclusive rights to anything based on any plants growing anywhere. Fire can claim exclusive rights to... candles or bonfires. One of those things is a lot less common than the other two.
That lack of balance is completely understandable, but still irks me.
And we've already had a candle (Litwick), so that leaves the bonfire...
...you can see the problem here.
Oh I quite liked Bronzor!
I was doing a nuzlocke run of Pokemon Pearl when I realised that actually, there's a LACK of grass types! (I picked chimchar)
Grass types are not really useful in game ... It's a bad offensive type (and in game efficient runs need good offensive Pokemon) and most Rock&Ground Pokemon can be handled by your mandatory water type (Everybody needs Surf and or Waterfall). The coverage on Water type can always be replaced by a good Electric type or just a powerful neutral hit
Occasionally, Grass-types can be useful, either due to a good secondary typing or due to very useful support moves (Stun Spore anyone?). Plus, some regions are just kinder earlier on. In the case of Kanto, Bulbasaur is a great choice for the early game due to the large number of major NPCs it can fight. Once this starts to shift towards becoming difficult, you have plenty of choices to compensate such as Arcanine, Ninetales, Vaporeon, Gyarados, and many others.
Bulbasaur a great choice ? Except Starmie, everything is a cake walk ... Good luck with Bulbasaur against All Bugs, All Grass, All Birds, and All the Zubat here
Edit : Bulbasaur is still my favorite Kanto Starter but it's not the best efficient wise
+ Poison typing is not a blessing in Gen 1, thanks Psychic weakness + double weakness to Bug (well only Zubat use Leech Life :D) + Ground neutrality
Edit : Bulbasaur is still my favorite Kanto Starter but it's not the best efficient wise
+ Poison typing is not a blessing in Gen 1, thanks Psychic weakness + double weakness to Bug (well only Zubat use Leech Life :D) + Ground neutrality
I don't even know why you need to do that when you can get Heart Scale by Rock Smash, PokeMileage Club or Underground (DPP)
Because Luvdisc yielding Heart Scales is far faster, far more likely and far more reliable.
In a Pokemon nuzlocke I'm doing I'm finding it hard to find a Pokemon that will get rid of water types. I chose a fire type starter you see and there is a complete lack of electric types so I have to relie on grass types...
When we are talking about what starter to choose, the argument is endless because you could just catch a Pokemon which covers the starter's weaknesses e.g a Ponyta in Pokemon DPP if you chose Piplup...
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FUN FACT: Bug-type moves were so ineffective in Gen I that Scyther & Pinsir didn't even learn any. Gen IV REALLY helped out the Bug-types by introducing X-Scissor, Bug Buzz, and U-Turn (Gen II didn't help except for Heracross with Megahorn and Gen III only helped winged Bug-types with Silver Wind (only Volbeat learned Signal Beam.., and Dewgong in FRLG)).
Yeah, though they could have just made Alomomola also hold Heart Scales.
Except Pin Missile and Twineedle are multi-hit attacks. giving them an average base power of 42 and 50 respectively. Still not the greatest moves, but enough to make weaknesses hurt.
The bigger problem here is how little distribution they got. Beedrill was the only Bug type to learn them and Jolteon the only other Pokemon to learn Pin Missile. Everything else was stuck with Leech Life or no Bug move at all.
Which again means that Bug moves aren't really an issue during in-game runs, as you won't exactly run into Beedrill and Jolteon left, right or center. Bulbasaur and his family might have been afraid of Pin Missile and Twineedle had there been any significant trainers running those moves, but there isn't. The only 'mons with Bug moves you ran into at any volume were early-game Zubat with Leech Life.
So in a way, it seems like Pokémon for the first 2-3 generations had more types than it knew what to do with. Ghost and Dragon effectively had no moves at all in RBY. Bug had no moves with any power to speak of, Rock had only two moves and half the Fighting moves were exclusive to Hitmonlee. Especially Ghost and Dragon were so under-utilized in the beginning that they might as well have been introduced in Gen III. Bug was a proper mess until Gen IV. Flying might as well not have been a type at all, it seems more like a mechanic made to add an "immune to Ground" attribute to bird-like Pokémon. We still have only one pure Flying type Pokémon, after six generations, and the only primary Flying types are only made that way as a novelty. It remains the oddball type in Pokémon, although most of the issues are being sorted out, and move-wise it's a pretty decent type.
Overall, though, it took a pretty long time before all the types had proper representation in the games. That's one of the best arguments against the quality of the first 2-3 generation of Pokémon games.
The physical/special split in Gen IV actually saved so many Pokemon. I had no idea it didn't exist before Gen4 (Pearl was my first game) and also had no idea WHY it didn't exist.
Why give Gengar a huge special attack when Ghost/Poison were both physical types? Why give Sneasel 35 special attack when Dark/Ice were special types? I am actually curios to know what was GF's logic when they did that lol.
Why give Gengar a huge special attack when Ghost/Poison were both physical types? Why give Sneasel 35 special attack when Dark/Ice were special types? I am actually curios to know what was GF's logic when they did that lol.
The fact that Bite and Crunch were Special moves in Gens 2 and 3 never failed to amuse me.
Bite is the only move which was physical then special then once again physical (Thanks the transition in Gen 2 from Normal to Dark ! :D)
When the Moves were split into categories via type I never understood why Dark was Special and Ghost was Physical, it seemed like it would be the opposite way around. So much so that when the split happened, the majority of Dark-type moves became Physical and most Ghost-type moves became Special.
Bug: Bug Buzz & X-Scissor (plus U-turn)
Dark: Night Slash & Dark Pulse (plus Sucker Punch)
Dragon: Dragon Pulse & Draco Meteor (the majority of Dragon-type moves became Physical so these were very much needed)
Electric: Discharge (plus Thunder Fang)
Fighting: Focus Blast & Close Combat (plus Vacuum Wave, Aura Sphere, Drain Punch, & Hammer Arm)
Fire: Flare Blitz (plus Lava Plume & Fire Fang)
Flying: Air Slash & Brave Bird (plus Roost & Defog (though Defog wouldn't become coveted until Gen VI))
Ghost: Shadow Claw
Grass: Energy Ball & Seed Bomb (plus Leaf Storm & Wood Hammer)
Ground: Earth Power
Ice: Ice Shard & Ice Fang
Normal: Giga Impact (to give Physical Pokemon their Hyper Beam. Fun fact, Dragonite, who was most famous for using Hyper Beam thanks to Lance, now would make much better use of Giga Impact)
Poison: Poison Jab (plus Cross Poison & Gunk Shot)
Psychic: Psycho Cut & Zen Headbutt (plus Healing Wish & Trick Room)
Rock: Power Gem & Stone Edge (plus Head Smash & Stealth Rock)
Steel: Flash Cannon & Iron Head (plus Bullet Punch & Gyro Ball)
Water: Aqua Jet (plus Aqua Tail)
Not only that, but the split also made GF release moves that are staples today due to either certain moves changing categories or they can now make a move in a category for a certain type:
Bug: Bug Buzz & X-Scissor (plus U-turn)
Dark: Night Slash & Dark Pulse (plus Sucker Punch)
Dragon: Dragon Pulse & Draco Meteor (the majority of Dragon-type moves became Physical so these were very much needed)
Electric: Discharge (plus Thunder Fang)
Fighting: Focus Blast & Close Combat (plus Vacuum Wave, Aura Sphere, Drain Punch, & Hammer Arm)
Fire: Flare Blitz (plus Lava Plume & Fire Fang)
Flying: Air Slash & Brave Bird (plus Roost & Defog (though Defog wouldn't become coveted until Gen VI))
Ghost: Shadow Claw
Grass: Energy Ball & Seed Bomb (plus Leaf Storm & Wood Hammer)
Ground: Earth Power
Ice: Ice Shard & Ice Fang
Normal: Giga Impact (to give Physical Pokemon their Hyper Beam. Fun fact, Dragonite, who was most famous for using Hyper Beam thanks to Lance, now would make much better use of Giga Impact)
Poison: Poison Jab (plus Cross Poison & Gunk Shot)
Psychic: Psycho Cut & Zen Headbutt (plus Healing Wish & Trick Room)
Rock: Power Gem & Stone Edge (plus Head Smash & Stealth Rock)
Steel: Flash Cannon & Iron Head (plus Bullet Punch & Gyro Ball)
Water: Aqua Jet (plus Aqua Tail)
I don't like using glitches in Pokemon because it ruins the game and I'm too lazy to look up the. Videos for them. I have done one or two glitches in the past though. They're so funny to watch...