Reminds me of Rhoulder in Temtem. One of its traits is Tardy Rush, which is similar to Slow Start but also kind of the opposite; after three turns, its speed is doubled and its attack is increased by 1.1x. It helps that its stats are already pretty good, though the wikia page isn't loading right now.
-
Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
I'm guessing this web page has... Slow Start.
I've never understood why the most common ideas for buffing Slow Start are always trying to apply extra effects on the ability.
I'd just make it so that the effect does not refresh when switching out. Make it wear out after it stays on the field after 5 complete turns, but not necessarily 5 consecutive turns.
I'd just make it so that the effect does not refresh when switching out. Make it wear out after it stays on the field after 5 complete turns, but not necessarily 5 consecutive turns.
I don't like the Ultra Beasts.
Well no, I do but hear me out.
The concept behind them? Absolutely fantastic. Alien Pokemon from a whole other dimension, so different in their biology that regular Pokeballs don't even recognise them as Pokemon? The whole lore around Ultra Wormholes and Fallers and each of their specific home dimensions in USUM? Flippin' brilliant. I love all of that.
I mean the actual creatures themselves.
There's a quote I can't find right now in which Junichi Masuda (I think) says something to the effect of "the design philosophy of the series is 'every Pokemon can be your friend, no matter how ferocious'". And I think this is one thing that has been adhered to scrupulously throughout the series as a whole. Even some of the most ferocious and outlandish designs that spring to mind for me, like Hydreigon, Crawdaunt, and Mega Tyranitar, manage to retain that aesthetic appeal that makes me like them.
But I don't get that from any of the UBs. They're all, as a whole, just so faceless and unrelatable and unsettling. Possible exceptions are Nihilego, which is one of my favourite Gen VII mons purely for its creepiness and Naganadel, which I've been using to great effect in the Battle Tree and Battle Royal of late. Guzzlord of course is great, though I wouldn't call it a favourite.
And, to be clear, I know that this feeling of distaste is very much part of the intention. It makes sense that alien Pokemon wouldn't have that same instant sense of connection regular ones do; they are designed to be unsettling and disturbing and a little bit creepy. What gets me is just how effectively I'm creeped out by them.
So, good job Game Freak at completely succeeding with the Ultra Beasts.
Well no, I do but hear me out.
The concept behind them? Absolutely fantastic. Alien Pokemon from a whole other dimension, so different in their biology that regular Pokeballs don't even recognise them as Pokemon? The whole lore around Ultra Wormholes and Fallers and each of their specific home dimensions in USUM? Flippin' brilliant. I love all of that.
I mean the actual creatures themselves.
There's a quote I can't find right now in which Junichi Masuda (I think) says something to the effect of "the design philosophy of the series is 'every Pokemon can be your friend, no matter how ferocious'". And I think this is one thing that has been adhered to scrupulously throughout the series as a whole. Even some of the most ferocious and outlandish designs that spring to mind for me, like Hydreigon, Crawdaunt, and Mega Tyranitar, manage to retain that aesthetic appeal that makes me like them.
But I don't get that from any of the UBs. They're all, as a whole, just so faceless and unrelatable and unsettling. Possible exceptions are Nihilego, which is one of my favourite Gen VII mons purely for its creepiness and Naganadel, which I've been using to great effect in the Battle Tree and Battle Royal of late. Guzzlord of course is great, though I wouldn't call it a favourite.
And, to be clear, I know that this feeling of distaste is very much part of the intention. It makes sense that alien Pokemon wouldn't have that same instant sense of connection regular ones do; they are designed to be unsettling and disturbing and a little bit creepy. What gets me is just how effectively I'm creeped out by them.
So, good job Game Freak at completely succeeding with the Ultra Beasts.
It would be hard for me to think more differently about this. I consider the UBs to be more appealing than most of the rest of gen 7, with the less biological ones (Xurkitree, Celesteela, Kartana, and Stakataka) being pretty high up in my general opinion as well.
But it did also take me a while to not be creeped out by Sylveon, so I'm probably just messed up.
No, I find Sylveon quite creepy too. Probably would do a lot less if the Pokedex would just shut up about its ribbon-like feelers that it wraps around people it loves
I think that's gameplay bleeding into the adjustment ideas because Regigigas isn't so powerful to where it needs a hindering ability to begin with, much less one that hits it this hard. The extra effects feel like an attempt to reconcile the flavor of the idea (which I still say is overblown in importance since literally no other Legendary Pokemon displays this kind of "rust" after being summoned/awakened) while making the Pokemon appropriately powerful (weak on one front but strengthened by a different effect to even it out).
The thing about the Ultra Beasts for me (and I can't decide if this is a good thing or not) is how they barely even feel cohesive with each other. To an extent that might be deliberate since USUM confirms they all have different home dimensions outside of the blanket of just "Ultra Space", but artistically, I probably would have to be told some of these Pokemon are supposed to be distinctly Alien compared to normal ones.
Like, Kartana, Guzzlord, Nihilego all stray decently far from the usual conventions, two of them lacking faces entirely, biology with tenuous at best real-world bases, and other quirks like Kartana's tiny design being thin and angular instead of a chunky child like a lot of rounded First-Stage/Early Gamers (Starters, Rats, Nidos, Pikachu, etc.)
On the other hand, some like Pheromosa just feel too anthropomorphized such that she's not any more out of place than semi-Humanoid Pokemon like Gardevoir, Lucario, or to a lesser extent something like Leavanny. Celesteela similarly doesn't seem that much more alien than other "object/fixture" Pokemon like Golurk, Aegislash, or even the Rotom-Appliance designs.
I think if I had to pin it to one factor, it's the face or lack thereof incorporated into the look. Pheromosa emotes about the same as most Pokemon, Celesteela's mouth and facial structure is very "human" despite the rest of the body, Poipole still feels like it has the "cute animal" design (though Naganadel irons that out for me). Most of the others you can't really discern a spot meant to act as a face, so you're either reading from incomplete features like Stackatacka's "eye", or their behavior/body language (which due to their body shapes may not mean anything or just be normal/reflexive to them anyway). Guzzlord mostly averts this because he barely closes his mouth to change expression and the rest of his design emphasizes incomprehensible biology like a lite-Lovecraftian creature (the Blackhole mouth, arms sticking out of that and his head, the color scheme, bizarre mix of rounding and spikes)
Outside of Espeon, I find the rest of the Eevee line (Eevee included) a lot creepier than Sylveon.
The UBs are fun in that they are pretty creepy at a glance, but then you start interacting with them on refresh/camp and you realize that despite looking so weird and offputting, they're still someone who you can befriend. They don't become more normal, they're little freaks in all of their animations and lore, but you start learning that these animations are happy, excited animations, that they enjoy being petted, eating beans and curry with you.
They're just your weirdo friends, and I really enjoy that, as a weirdo pokémon enjoyer
They're just your weirdo friends, and I really enjoy that, as a weirdo pokémon enjoyer
I actually like the idea of every Pokemon being a potential friend. Since Pokemon have become animal stand-ins, rather than being dangerous creatures separate from animals since Gen 2 or 3, I wondered what it'd be like if everything in the environment was technically a Pokemon like in Monster Hunter, in which the environments are literally made of monsters to an extent.
Isn't there non-monster (but still fictional) wildlife in Monster Hunter, though? I'm also reminded of Monster Sanctuary, where it's repeatedly and explicitly said in the in-game encyclopedia that normal animals exist in this world; "monster" is a catch-all term for supernatural creatures/plants/fungi/ovens/alien goo. It seems to be inspired by early Pokémon lore.
This is normally true in Monster Sanctuary and even Monster Crown, the latter of which treats monsters more like hellspawns than regular animals.
Here's a wildly unpopular opinion - I actually like the slowness of Gen 4...to an extent. I will say DP took it way too far but HGSS and Platinum's engines hit it just right as far as game speed for me. Particularly with move animations, I found the HGSS and Platinum attacks to be much more dramatic in execution rather than Gen 5's which honestly seemed a bit cartoonish to me. Close Combat strikes me as move that was executed much more dramatically and impactfully in Gen 4 as compared to the Gen 5 rendition which seemed almost kind of slapstick.
I never had an issue with the game speed of HGSS and Platinum; as a matter fact I preferred it over the game speed of Gen 5 in many ways, particularly with respect to battle animations.
I never had an issue with the game speed of HGSS and Platinum; as a matter fact I preferred it over the game speed of Gen 5 in many ways, particularly with respect to battle animations.
I too appreciated the ability to Close Combat a Blissey, go grab a drink and make myself something to eat, and come back in time to watch the last quarter of its health creep down.
I grew up with gen 4 but I genuinely dislike Dialga and Palkia. I just think they look stupid and that their gimmick of representing time and space isn't incorporated well into their designs or their lore (which is basically just that they were made by Arceus and represent time and space)
Giratina's cool though
Giratina's cool though
Kalos has the easiest league in the games
I mean would Dialga really look better if it was based on a clock? Or Palkia if it was covered in stars? I definitely don’t think they’re the greatest Pokemon designs but I don’t think they’re that bad.
Strictly speaking, if the analogy for Dialga is a clock, then the more apt suggestion for Palkia would be like… a yardstick, or something, because it represents spatial dimensions, rather than the cosmos.
Which I think really sort of illustrates what’s so tricky about these two from a design perspective. Time and space are far more abstract than dualities like “land and sea” or “sun and moon,” or even “yin and yang” which, despite being a philosophical duality, has a ready-made starting point for any aesthetic choices. Temporal and spatial dimensions, on the other hand, aren’t really things that we even *see* — they’re the gridlines of the universe; they establish the parameters of how we see *everything else*.
Now, take that prospect and consider how to go about depicting it in the form of a pocket-sized creature that’s planned to go right on the box art of the new flagship games, and thus also has to be cool and relatable to people ranging from 6-years-old to adulthood… Dialga and Palkia aren’t my favorite mascots either, but in any case, that’s a pretty tall order, and I don’t envy the designers having to find their way to meeting it. In a way, I can totally see why they ended up leaning more into the “diamond and pearl” theme with a sort of angular/curved duality to help anchor and guide the designs, even though precious gemstones are not really what one might think of as obvious signifiers of four-dimensional spacetime. But hey, they at least still managed to work subtle clock hand marks into Dialga’s design.
I mean, maybe?
The new legendaries are based on motorcycles. Clock and yard stick based dragons could maybe look really bussin
I'd like to say it's a popular opinion.
Ah yes, the Pokémon equivalent of Supernova.
It's also really suspenseful. Survive? Won't survive? Like it or not, we all have something to say on high-damage moves dealt on Pokémon with lots of HP.
Unpopular? Probably not. But I'm backing up this idea.
That said, this also means we are going to keep the flying battle models...
Speaking of flying models, as much as I and everyone else dislike most of them, Xatu's model embodies the "So Bad, It's Good" saying:
Power creep yes, it'd-be-broken-if-it-had-it yes, but I genuinely think it's farcical that Garchomp still doesn't get Dragon Dance when pretty much every other dragon does. Fairies exist, Ice-types exist, Zacian-C exists, multiple counters to Garchomp exist.
I'm not disputing that it'd be fearsomely powerful but... lots of Pokemon are fearsomely powerful and OP, especially in today's metagame. Garchomp with DD in Gen IV or V would have been super busted, but now... I'm not convinced. It already gets Swords Dance and Scale Shot which is the next best thing, and yes DD is a single turn of setup vs two but...
Eh. There are all manner of OP Pokemon running around atm, what's one more.
I'm not disputing that it'd be fearsomely powerful but... lots of Pokemon are fearsomely powerful and OP, especially in today's metagame. Garchomp with DD in Gen IV or V would have been super busted, but now... I'm not convinced. It already gets Swords Dance and Scale Shot which is the next best thing, and yes DD is a single turn of setup vs two but...
Eh. There are all manner of OP Pokemon running around atm, what's one more.
This reminds me of how Flygon didn't get Dragon Dance until Generation VII. (Vibrava still doesn't.)
But funnily enough, before Generation VIII I always thought the Gible line has access to this move, it just uses Swords Dance instead because 102 base Speed doesn't need to be boosted. I was dumb.