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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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Arceus, the god of all Pokemon; omnipotent deity able to transcend time and space. It is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It created knowledge, willpower, and emotion. It oversees all living things and is well-beyond the scope of 3D.
Let's talk about Arceus. Specifically, the way Arceus was showcased. Let's compare Arceus's established lore in canon with how it was handled in the Gen 4 games, anime, and manga!
Here's how Arceus was treated throughout all of Gen 4. Here we go!
The movie
Arceus
Is omnipotent.
Is responsible for the creation of the entire universe and all of its aspects.
Created the entire universe.
Xerneas can do the same without needing a plate...
GRASS-TYPE POKEMON CAN DO THE SAME WITHOUT NEEDING A PLATE.
The games
Arceus
Is God of all Pokemon
The manga
Arceus
Was responsible for humanity's creation and encourages people to bond with Pokemon.
In 2009, Pokemon changed Arceus's pronunciation from Ar-see-us to Ar-key-us. This was to avoid English speakers from seeing Arceus as the butt of jokes as the former pronunciation had the sound "arse" in it. While I believe they succeeded with the pronunciation, they failed to treat Arceus as anything BUT a complete arse. I made this post as memey as possible to emphasize that Arceus was treated as nothing more than a parody. I thoroughly believe Gen 4 Arceus had to have been most mistreated Pokemon throughout all of series history. Palkia, Dialga, Giratina, and the lake trio were close. They were all similarly mishandled in ways that make Zygarde feel lucky to have not been involved in any plot at all. I sincerely hope we never get another a case this badly mishandled ever again.
Let's talk about Arceus. Specifically, the way Arceus was showcased. Let's compare Arceus's established lore in canon with how it was handled in the Gen 4 games, anime, and manga!
Here's how Arceus was treated throughout all of Gen 4. Here we go!
The movie
Arceus
Is omnipotent.
- Sacrificed its life to create an orb.
- Nearly died to a meteor.
- Needed to be saved by a man and a 10 year old kid on separate occasions.
- Gets defeated by silver water.
- Gets fooled by humanity
- Went on an animalistic rampage in pursuit to destroy humanity.
- Initiated destruction by randomly firing beams towards buildings.
- Gets stalled out by 10 year old kids.
Created the entire universe.
- Needs to rely on five plates to make land flourished.
Xerneas can do the same without needing a plate...
GRASS-TYPE POKEMON CAN DO THE SAME WITHOUT NEEDING A PLATE.
The games
Arceus
Is God of all Pokemon
- Gets denied the release of its Azure Flute.
- Gets reduced to a Toys "R" Us giveaway.
- Gets distributed with an EV cap of 100 per stat.
- Gets dubbed as Farceus.
- Gets its event based on the movie.
The manga
Arceus
Was responsible for humanity's creation and encourages people to bond with Pokemon.
- Is the antagonist.
In 2009, Pokemon changed Arceus's pronunciation from Ar-see-us to Ar-key-us. This was to avoid English speakers from seeing Arceus as the butt of jokes as the former pronunciation had the sound "arse" in it. While I believe they succeeded with the pronunciation, they failed to treat Arceus as anything BUT a complete arse. I made this post as memey as possible to emphasize that Arceus was treated as nothing more than a parody. I thoroughly believe Gen 4 Arceus had to have been most mistreated Pokemon throughout all of series history. Palkia, Dialga, Giratina, and the lake trio were close. They were all similarly mishandled in ways that make Zygarde feel lucky to have not been involved in any plot at all. I sincerely hope we never get another a case this badly mishandled ever again.
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Thank you. I probably need to think harder about what might be seen as an unpopular opinion. It is strange to think about obtaining a Dragonite, and not being able to annihilate your foes with Dragon Dance and Outrage or Dragon Claw.
Do you have evidence of this, beyond the fact that Dratini's family are the only Dragon types in Generation I? Between all of the pseudo-dragons that players encounter in RBY, I would think at least some other Dragon type Pokémon were planned.
Gyarados
In Japanese media, even creation gods very rarely depicted as omnipotent or infallible. This is due to the lack of any extremely prominent monotheistic religion having a major impact on their history or culture. In fact quite often beings close to the western idea of creation deities are often depicted as being either apathetic to the happenings of the mortal world post-creation, or are major control freaks that want to stamp out anyone and anything wanting to work against their teachings.
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I had always taken Arceus to be less a confirmed Omnipotent being and more akin to a high tier Legendary that some texts allude to or revere as a God-level being. In particular my mind is there because we have other Pokemon whose power can go past Arceus, like the Primals and Mega Ray in Gen 6, but also another conceptually.
In Gen 5, Zekrom, Reshiram, and the Tao Legendary concept in general puts them on a level of reverence but also never suggests they're more than just "really powerful Dragons". Kyurem with a 660 BST vs the Dragons' 680, which becomes 700 after integrating one of them for Black/White Kyurem. Depending on which you look at as the base, theoretically bringing all 3 together into the original would be either a 720 to match or a 740 to surpass Arceus.
The Gen 4 Legendaries in general I always felt would be better contextualized as Beings with strong control over the concepts moreso than their embodiments. We already had Legendaries with Time Travel like Celebi as a precedent for Dialga at least, and the Lake Trio would be more extreme versions of certain regular Pokemon having power over Emotions or Minds.
In fairness to the Game performance, didn't Farceus, even with the EV Cap, eventually end up in the Gen 4 equivalent of AG even with that limitation?
Legends pretty much revealed that the fence llama we see is nothing but a small aspect of the entire being. Which would makes sense with stuff like the dex entries saying it created the world with its 1000 arms, when the design of its avatar for the mortal plane doesn't have any arms at all.
Also revealed that legendaries pretty much allow kids to let them catch them because it's only like a century-long(at most) side gig for an immortal being.
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Reminds me of Volgon from Temtem, which is one of that game's equivalent of legendaries. Its Tempedia entry is really interesting:
Like with a lot of legendary PokéDex entries, it uses wording that doesn't outright state the myths are true, and explains why these highly-powerful beings would let humans command them. Now that I think about it, legendaries weren't explicitly god-like until Gen 3...
Like with a lot of legendary PokéDex entries, it uses wording that doesn't outright state the myths are true, and explains why these highly-powerful beings would let humans command them. Now that I think about it, legendaries weren't explicitly god-like until Gen 3...
Personally I’ve never really considered Arceus and its cohorts to actually be omnipotent shapers of the universe, largely because I feel like once you have a detailed, iron-clad account of how everything was made and why it all exists, it all just seems rather boring. I think it’s a lot more intriguing and fun for the imagination if all the Sinnoh lore is just one culture’s way of looking at things, and is an incomplete picture even on its own terms.
Like, there’s no doubting that these are incredibly powerful beings that can control fundamental forces. But I think it’s a lot more interesting if, rather than just being objective gods of a pantheon, the reality of them is something more inscrutable to human understanding. (For example, there’s an event-only NPC in Platinum who theorizes that Arceus might be the “physical form” of the original spirit within people and Pokémon.) In fact, I was kind of surprised by how restrained Legends: Arceus was in this regard, as I was fully prepared to see like, a slideshow flashback to Arceus hatching from its egg and birthing the universe and such, but instead, Arceus just… asks us to complete the Pokédex, for reasons it never really elaborates on. The people who actually worshiped Arceus (rather than mistaking it for Dialga and Palkia) are long-gone, and their civilization is in ruins, thereby keeping any potential “truth” at a further remove. The Celestica tribe’s sole surviving members, Cogita and Volo, are allowed to remain cryptic and enigmatic instead of being exposition dispensers. It’s something I really liked that about the game overall.
Like, there’s no doubting that these are incredibly powerful beings that can control fundamental forces. But I think it’s a lot more interesting if, rather than just being objective gods of a pantheon, the reality of them is something more inscrutable to human understanding. (For example, there’s an event-only NPC in Platinum who theorizes that Arceus might be the “physical form” of the original spirit within people and Pokémon.) In fact, I was kind of surprised by how restrained Legends: Arceus was in this regard, as I was fully prepared to see like, a slideshow flashback to Arceus hatching from its egg and birthing the universe and such, but instead, Arceus just… asks us to complete the Pokédex, for reasons it never really elaborates on. The people who actually worshiped Arceus (rather than mistaking it for Dialga and Palkia) are long-gone, and their civilization is in ruins, thereby keeping any potential “truth” at a further remove. The Celestica tribe’s sole surviving members, Cogita and Volo, are allowed to remain cryptic and enigmatic instead of being exposition dispensers. It’s something I really liked that about the game overall.
The very fact that there are several Pokémon that could have been Dragon types but are not Dragon types is evidence for this. Beyond that, as others mentioned, resisting the "starter types" (usual starters + Electric) and being exclusively used by Lance among enemy trainers make it evident that Dragon is an intentionally "strong" type. Dragonite also has the highest BST of all gen I Pokémon outside of Mewtwo.
Gyarados was named specifically, and I'd like to emphasize on this one. In gen I Gyarados had a BST of 480 compared to Dragonite's 500. The legendary birds are 485-495. The next highest after that is 455 for Exeggutor and Arcanine. Gyarados used to be a lot stronger comparatively than it is now. And Dragon would have been a much more obvious choice for it than Flying. But, Dragon Rage was the only Dragon move in the game. Water/Dragon had no weaknesses in gen I. That could have been a reason for Gyarados being Water/Flying instead, instead of just being reserved specifically for the Dratini line. Hard to say which would have come first. But it's quite safe to say if any other gen I Pokémon was ever planned to be a Dragon besides Dratini, it would have been Gyarados.
(Begin humor) Obviously, the meteor was "It's super effective!". Do you think that Arceus is an exception just because it created the universe? Nonsense! Do you know anything about Pokémon? (End humor)
I did not know that Dragonair and Dragonite were used exclusively by Lance, thank you for pointing this out.
This is a topic change, but I've genuinely never understood why people make out like being a Pokemon master is something unknowable.
Quoting Bulbapedia's article on the matter:
Pokémon Master (Japanese: ポケモンマスター Pokémon Master) is a title in the Pokémon world. It is the goal of many Pokémon Trainers to become a Pokémon Master. However, exactly what this position is and how one attains it is vague and never fully explained.
In response to an email sent to its mailbag, Pokémon.com posted the following:
I get why the Pokemon Company would be reluctant to define it in such terms - it may be that the very fact that people were curious enough to ask made them decide "yeah, let's string this out." However, I’ve honestly never seen why it’s supposed to be such a mysterious and undefined goal.
The early anime does admittedly muddy the waters with Ash (and the narration) declaring that he will catch every Pokemon and thus become a Pokemon master. However, even back then it was always my interpretation that this is the metric by which Ash himself judges will make him a Pokemon master - it's not a concrete "obtain all 151 Pokemon and you're golden", otherwise any wealthy person could do it with relative ease, and Gary gets explicitly called out for catching over 100 Pokemon but not taking the time or effort to bond with them and raise them all.
To me it’s pretty clear that to be a Pokemon master is simply to be an elite. Analogous to someone who’s reached the peak of their profession in any other field. Someone whose mastery of Pokemon battling, raising, and/or knowledge is so extensive that they’re considered one of the best. They don’t necessarily *have* to be an Elite Four member or a champion, it's just that a lot of them are - but we've seen trainers in the games and anime who absolutely should count as master trainers who often have no particular position or rank. No, it’s just being incredibly good at what you do - akin to being an Olympic athlete or a chess prodigy.
This is why Ash thinks that forging a special relationship with every species of Pokemon there is (and to give him his due, he has shown that he's really good at drawing out the potential of pretty much any Pokemon he catches) is what will make him a master. That's his personal ultimate goal. He has also always wanted to be a fantastic battler and achieve recognition for his prowess in combat but that's ultimately concomitant with his primary goal of catching them all, despite the direction of the recent anime. But I haven't seen most of Journeys so I won't expound too much on something I still need to be more familiar with.
But to circle back. What a Pokemon master is may not ever have been fully or properly explained, but I don't think it's something that is difficult to deduce when you look at everything the series has told us so far.
Quoting Bulbapedia's article on the matter:
Pokémon Master (Japanese: ポケモンマスター Pokémon Master) is a title in the Pokémon world. It is the goal of many Pokémon Trainers to become a Pokémon Master. However, exactly what this position is and how one attains it is vague and never fully explained.
In response to an email sent to its mailbag, Pokémon.com posted the following:
I get why the Pokemon Company would be reluctant to define it in such terms - it may be that the very fact that people were curious enough to ask made them decide "yeah, let's string this out." However, I’ve honestly never seen why it’s supposed to be such a mysterious and undefined goal.
The early anime does admittedly muddy the waters with Ash (and the narration) declaring that he will catch every Pokemon and thus become a Pokemon master. However, even back then it was always my interpretation that this is the metric by which Ash himself judges will make him a Pokemon master - it's not a concrete "obtain all 151 Pokemon and you're golden", otherwise any wealthy person could do it with relative ease, and Gary gets explicitly called out for catching over 100 Pokemon but not taking the time or effort to bond with them and raise them all.
To me it’s pretty clear that to be a Pokemon master is simply to be an elite. Analogous to someone who’s reached the peak of their profession in any other field. Someone whose mastery of Pokemon battling, raising, and/or knowledge is so extensive that they’re considered one of the best. They don’t necessarily *have* to be an Elite Four member or a champion, it's just that a lot of them are - but we've seen trainers in the games and anime who absolutely should count as master trainers who often have no particular position or rank. No, it’s just being incredibly good at what you do - akin to being an Olympic athlete or a chess prodigy.
This is why Ash thinks that forging a special relationship with every species of Pokemon there is (and to give him his due, he has shown that he's really good at drawing out the potential of pretty much any Pokemon he catches) is what will make him a master. That's his personal ultimate goal. He has also always wanted to be a fantastic battler and achieve recognition for his prowess in combat but that's ultimately concomitant with his primary goal of catching them all, despite the direction of the recent anime. But I haven't seen most of Journeys so I won't expound too much on something I still need to be more familiar with.
But to circle back. What a Pokemon master is may not ever have been fully or properly explained, but I don't think it's something that is difficult to deduce when you look at everything the series has told us so far.
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This might be hard to swallow for some people, but I ended up preferring Z-Moves and Terastalling over Mega Evolution, despite the latter having a more interesting concept.
Here’s my top 4 of “super gimmicks”.
Disagree all you want, but I won’t be swayed.
On second thought, that sentence above doesn’t make for good conversation. Won’t write that again going forward.
Here’s my top 4 of “super gimmicks”.
- Z-Moves
- Terastelization
- Mega Evolution
- Dynamax + Gigantamax
- Z-Moves: Despite the problems with most signature Z-Moves (just hit harder, or use an otherwise unhelpful move), Z-Moves are still interesting and even fun to mess with, since the Z-Crystals also interact with Status Moves in a variety of ways, allowing incentivity to experiment with the individual moves. It’s even better that “Route Leaders” Trainers also use them, too, not just important Trainers like the Kahunas. The animation tend to be too long for a game that is supposed to be fast-paced, though, especially in competitive.
- Terastelization: While keeping the old STABs makes it too easy to spiral out of control offensively, it does have merits for defensive or disruptive uses. It allows Pokémon with poor defensive typing to shine and Pokémon with limited coverage to get around that coverage issue, but it can become too easy for already viable Pokémon to become even more powerful.
- Mega Evolution: Great concept, overall terrible execution all-around despite benefiting otherwise unviable Pokémon like Mawile, Beedrill and Kangaskhan. It started the trend of super gimmicks being about more being a “crowd pleaser” than an actually balanced system that will help shake things up. By giving overpowered Mega Evolution for Pokémon that only get one for lore / ace reason (Salamence, Garchomp, Metagross) or even giving two forms for already popular Pokémon (Charizard and Mewtwo), only the most best of best Mega Evolution for otherwise unviable Pokémon are significant buff. I am also not a fan that it’s given for single-stage or second-stage Pokémon with low BST, given that their issues can be easily solved by actual evolution, making the Mega Evolution distribution even more uncohesive.
- Dynamax: Easily the worst due to the absurdity and being a complete uncohesive mess. It also caused the most balance issue, to the point that it makes Mega Evolution looks balanced. Gigantamax did not helped the case either, having unique design that only amounts of a different G-Max move that isn’t always better than normal Max Move of same type despite being significantly rarer back in the base game. On top of too many of returning Pokémon being Kanto Pokémon, including the starters and Gengar despite already having a Mega Evolution beforehand.
On second thought, that sentence above doesn’t make for good conversation. Won’t write that again going forward.
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Not going to dispute you over an opinion but this particular line, even if it's not your intention, comes off as unnecessarily aggressive and hostile. By adding this line you are effectively coming off as wanting to shut down all discussion on the topic and inherently asserting your opinion as infallible and superior to everyone else's opinions, even if that's not what you're intending. Which is a pretty toxic notion in a space that's intended for healthy discussion on opinions, and people should accept that not everyone will feel the same way on different topics as they do themselves. This is a public forum, and healthy discussion and disagreement is perfectly fine and is in fact a welcome part of discussion.
Even if you are rather steadfast in your opinion a line like this really isn't necessary, you shouldn't shut down other people because they might not agree with you or share the same opinion, this is a forum meant for people to discuss their opinions, ideally in a healthy manner.
I would advise avoiding making these kinds of statements in the future, this is unnecessarily hostile and isn't helpful to a forum meant for conversation in good faith, and whether intentional or not, comes off as extremely condescending and confrontational. Again, with all due respect it's crucial you word your posts more carefully in the future because statements as extreme and loaded as this aren't beneficial for anyone in a public forum like this.
Well, this is fair. I didn’t know how aggressive this message comes off, so I’ll remove or strikethrough ASAP.
I won’t write something like this again.
Pokemon need to have both objectively good Pokemon and objectively bad Pokemon.
I see a lot of people on Smogon complaining the powercreep, and how so many bad Pokemon exist in comparison to good ones, at least in terms of BSTs. But I feel like a lot of people forget one of Pokemon's fundamental problem is that it is designed as a Single Player game first, and multiplayer game second. And from a Single Player perspective, you need to have Pokemon who are better than other because Pokemon are the equivalent to new weapons, classes, and heroes you get as you progress through the game. So naturally these assets have to be better than the ones you get early game right? Each Pokemon since the era of RBY was designed to have a role in a single player RPG, not strictly multiplayer.
Some examples:
Weedle, Caterpie, and Wurmple lines are designed to teach the player about evolution, hence why the early level requirements and low stats because after that you are supposed to discard them.
Psuedo-Legendary Pokemon are designed to be used for a Boss Fight, with the high level requirements being the drawback since they full evolve by the time the majority of your party is already fully evolved. Salamence is an example of this, if you went into RS blind, you probably didn’t have an Ice type because the scarcity of Ice types in Hoenn and the fact all the three are found in optional dungeons the player could miss.
Gengar and Alakazam have amazing stats for RBY standards due to being required to trade them, but they have a drawback of requiring them to trade as a balancing technique.
The Titan Pokemon like Bombirdier and Klawf might have underwhelming stats for Multiplayer, but by that point in Single player, they have very high stats. Conversely, Dondozo has the bests stats outside of Titan Pokemon, because its supposed to be the final boss.
Purugly is another example of a Pokemon that is a great surprise boss under the circumstances it is fought under.
Gholdengo might be the face of OU and has a broken ability to boot, but how do you get it in game? Collect 999 Gimmighoul coins scattered throughout the region! And if you want another, repeat the process! That so much effort, they have to make it worth the effort by making Gholdengo really good.
The types also play a huge role, and they intended to make some types better to give each Pokemon a role. Dragon prior to Gen 6 was primarily intended to be a boss type, hence the psuedo-legendaries and good moves. However, this is balanced by how difficult it is to obtain Dragon types in Single Player. Look at HGSS, only two Dragon type lines, both have avalibility issues. Dratini evolves at ludicrous levels, passing the champion while Kingdra requires a trade with a Dragon Scale, an exceedingly rare item. Chances are you were not getting one- conversley, both Kingdra and Dragonite are excellent bosses in these games thanks to the lack of exploitable weaknesses. So while you might be able to do DragMag in multiplayer, high unlikely you'd do it in Single player.
In conclusion, not every Pokemon needs to have the highest stats to be effective, and Pokemon need to have lower stats to be appropriate for the single player playthrough. If Pokemon like Dragonite were obtainable by the 1st gym for either the player or enemy, the whole balance would fall apart.
I see a lot of people on Smogon complaining the powercreep, and how so many bad Pokemon exist in comparison to good ones, at least in terms of BSTs. But I feel like a lot of people forget one of Pokemon's fundamental problem is that it is designed as a Single Player game first, and multiplayer game second. And from a Single Player perspective, you need to have Pokemon who are better than other because Pokemon are the equivalent to new weapons, classes, and heroes you get as you progress through the game. So naturally these assets have to be better than the ones you get early game right? Each Pokemon since the era of RBY was designed to have a role in a single player RPG, not strictly multiplayer.
Some examples:
Weedle, Caterpie, and Wurmple lines are designed to teach the player about evolution, hence why the early level requirements and low stats because after that you are supposed to discard them.
Psuedo-Legendary Pokemon are designed to be used for a Boss Fight, with the high level requirements being the drawback since they full evolve by the time the majority of your party is already fully evolved. Salamence is an example of this, if you went into RS blind, you probably didn’t have an Ice type because the scarcity of Ice types in Hoenn and the fact all the three are found in optional dungeons the player could miss.
Gengar and Alakazam have amazing stats for RBY standards due to being required to trade them, but they have a drawback of requiring them to trade as a balancing technique.
The Titan Pokemon like Bombirdier and Klawf might have underwhelming stats for Multiplayer, but by that point in Single player, they have very high stats. Conversely, Dondozo has the bests stats outside of Titan Pokemon, because its supposed to be the final boss.
Purugly is another example of a Pokemon that is a great surprise boss under the circumstances it is fought under.
Gholdengo might be the face of OU and has a broken ability to boot, but how do you get it in game? Collect 999 Gimmighoul coins scattered throughout the region! And if you want another, repeat the process! That so much effort, they have to make it worth the effort by making Gholdengo really good.
The types also play a huge role, and they intended to make some types better to give each Pokemon a role. Dragon prior to Gen 6 was primarily intended to be a boss type, hence the psuedo-legendaries and good moves. However, this is balanced by how difficult it is to obtain Dragon types in Single Player. Look at HGSS, only two Dragon type lines, both have avalibility issues. Dratini evolves at ludicrous levels, passing the champion while Kingdra requires a trade with a Dragon Scale, an exceedingly rare item. Chances are you were not getting one- conversley, both Kingdra and Dragonite are excellent bosses in these games thanks to the lack of exploitable weaknesses. So while you might be able to do DragMag in multiplayer, high unlikely you'd do it in Single player.
In conclusion, not every Pokemon needs to have the highest stats to be effective, and Pokemon need to have lower stats to be appropriate for the single player playthrough. If Pokemon like Dragonite were obtainable by the 1st gym for either the player or enemy, the whole balance would fall apart.
Inequality should exist, but the degree of inequality is not good game design. Pokémon that evolve quickly should exist, but for them to be as weak as they are shouldn't be the case and isn't necessary for them to perform their role. Moreover, they're actually bad at their intended role, as due to how weak Pokemon like Caterpie and Weedle are, and their Medium Fast EXP group, it's faster to evolve the starter. The idea of replacing team members as the game progresses also gets handicapped by stat EXP. An already trained Pokémon with a lower BST is going to be easier to train and stronger than something freshly caught with a lower BST, I.E. Pidgeotto or Fearow vs. Doduo in Kanto.
I would also point out that while Dragonite was used exclusively by Lance in gen I-III, the second 600 club member, Tyranitar, saw no usage by enemy trainers in its debut game whatsoever. And one of the strongest ones of all, Garchomp, has a level requirement of 48, the lowest of all 600 club members, and fairly reasonable to use for in-game. Like, Dreepy doesn't even evolve until 50.
Trade Pokémon also aren't very good examples of being strong due to requiring trades. Machamp and Golem were the two other trade Pokémon in gen I, and Golem is strictly worse than Rhydon. Machamp was just straight up bad. Other trade Pokémon are often pretty terrible too, most notably Clamperl's evolutions.
A high BST is not necessary for a Pokémon to be good. Things like good typings, stat distribution, abilities and moves, these are crucial too. Klawf and Bombirdier sit at 450 and 485 BST respectively. Breloom is at 460, Clefable at 473, Azumarill is a measly 410, they're all generally OU viable if not straight up OU in their peak games thanks to their other characteristics. If I remember correctly, Clefable was the most used Pokemon in Smogon's Sw/Sh format. There's no reason for an early boss Pokémon to have to be bad. Even back in gen I, Starmie was used by the second gym leader, and was a potent threat then, in the player's hands (albeit underleveled and in a Slow EXP group), and in competitive. It is much better game design to feature strong Pokémon early on, with their strengths stripped or undermined (I.E. a physical Gengar a la Johto's Morty), than a deliberately bad Pokémon that is only a threat to players when fought early on.
The main problems lie in that there are too many Pokémon that are just straight up bad and have no actual role to fulfill, and even when it's possible to salvage a Pokémon that has terrible stats or typing with powerful tools, the developers simply don't go for it. It's fine to have weaker Pokémon, but straight up bad ones that only serve one purpose are not good game design.
I would also point out that while Dragonite was used exclusively by Lance in gen I-III, the second 600 club member, Tyranitar, saw no usage by enemy trainers in its debut game whatsoever. And one of the strongest ones of all, Garchomp, has a level requirement of 48, the lowest of all 600 club members, and fairly reasonable to use for in-game. Like, Dreepy doesn't even evolve until 50.
Trade Pokémon also aren't very good examples of being strong due to requiring trades. Machamp and Golem were the two other trade Pokémon in gen I, and Golem is strictly worse than Rhydon. Machamp was just straight up bad. Other trade Pokémon are often pretty terrible too, most notably Clamperl's evolutions.
A high BST is not necessary for a Pokémon to be good. Things like good typings, stat distribution, abilities and moves, these are crucial too. Klawf and Bombirdier sit at 450 and 485 BST respectively. Breloom is at 460, Clefable at 473, Azumarill is a measly 410, they're all generally OU viable if not straight up OU in their peak games thanks to their other characteristics. If I remember correctly, Clefable was the most used Pokemon in Smogon's Sw/Sh format. There's no reason for an early boss Pokémon to have to be bad. Even back in gen I, Starmie was used by the second gym leader, and was a potent threat then, in the player's hands (albeit underleveled and in a Slow EXP group), and in competitive. It is much better game design to feature strong Pokémon early on, with their strengths stripped or undermined (I.E. a physical Gengar a la Johto's Morty), than a deliberately bad Pokémon that is only a threat to players when fought early on.
The main problems lie in that there are too many Pokémon that are just straight up bad and have no actual role to fulfill, and even when it's possible to salvage a Pokémon that has terrible stats or typing with powerful tools, the developers simply don't go for it. It's fine to have weaker Pokémon, but straight up bad ones that only serve one purpose are not good game design.
Garchomp actually isn't the earliest evolving pseudo-legendary/600 club mon. That honor actually belongs to Metagross, who evolves at Level 45, who also tied with Kommo-o in that regard: both have their second evo level at 45. The Beldum line takes the universal honor of having the lowest evolution levels of the archetype, with Beldum evolving once at Level 20 and then the second time at Level 45.
In general pseudo-legendary evolution levels, like all evolution levels in general, are scaled with respect to their debut games, which often times aren't future proofed. Older pseudo-legendaries were designed to be found morbidly underleveled for the point you would get them in their base stage and then needed a significant amount of catching up to get up to speed, and they generally had modest evolution levels aside from usually reaching their final form around Level 50. Like Dratini or Gible for instance are found around the mid-game in their debut games of RGB and DP, but are found at Level 15 while your team is likely in the mid-high 30s: a lot of catching up to get them up to speed with the rest of your team, further compounded by their slow levelling rate. Larvitar infamously couldn't be found until close to the very end of GSC at Level 15 as well while your team was likely in the low 50s. This especially applies to Beldum, who could only be found in the post-game in RSE at a measly Level 5, so despite its low evolution levels, it still required a significant amount of grinding in each stage to reach its full potential and to catch up.
Pseudo-legendaries in later games tend to be found more on par with the level curve, but take a similar level of effort to reach their full potential since their evolution levels are higher to make up for it. Deino for instance has the absolute highest evolution levels of the pseudo-legendaries and frankly all Pokemon in general, but it's found between Level 38 and 40 in BW1. So its high evolution levels of 50 and 64 respectively constitute a similar magnitude of effort as older pseudos. Goomy also has a high first evolution level of 40, and it's found around Level 30 in XY. Jangmo-o has a bizarre case where it's found well above its own evolution level of 35, but that's likely counteracted by its extraordinarily low encounter rate. Dreepy is also relatively not high effort in a vacuum in SwSh due to being found at Level 50, which means Drakloak is close in sight anyway while Dragapult at Level 60 is only a few levels away and is extraordinarily rare and finicky in terms of availability and encounter rate. Frigibax is closer to older pseudos level wise, it can be found as low as Level 24 while it evolves once at Level 35 and again at Level 54, making it about on par with other pseudos in terms of effort investment.
I think aside from *most* pseudos being an end-game boss fight the 600 club's function from a gameplay standpoint is to serve as elusive, high-effort, high reward Pokemon who you both have to go out of your way to find and invest a significant amount of effort into raising, starting with a relatively weak base stage and a mediocre middle stage, further compounded by their high evolution levels and slow levelling rate. Basically an Infinity +1 Sword mon, which can absolutely carry you in the endgame if you wanna try, but you have to be extraordinarily committed to raising them. You bring up Gible, but Gible is mostly "usable" in-game in Platinum specifically because they made it available earlier (the earliest of all pseudos thus far) due to them removing the barriers to Gible's dungeon: Diamond and Pearl Gible is much more of a pain due to its dungeon being inaccessible until after the 6th Gym and being found over 20 levels below the levels your team will be at by that point. In most cases the pseudo-legendary isn't easy to raise or use in-game, and most certainly isn't for the faint of heart.
Yeah I misremembered Garchomp as 42, double checked after I posted and corrected the number, but did not correct for the fact that 48 isn't the lowest 600 club level. The point I was making was that Garchomp has a low level requirement for how strong it is, even between other 600 club members. Though, 48 isn't quite as much a disparity as 42 like I incorrectly remembered it as. 48 is a decent level even in games past DPP, so Garchomp remains a good pick for in-game when it is available. The effort for reward level is completely different from something like Dreepy, where Dragapult is also incredibly strong but takes far more effort to acquire in a context like S/V.
I had a thought on the topic of major NPCs using type-specialized teams. On one hand, it seems odd to tell the player to make a balanced team and then not provide many examples of a balanced team being strong. On the other, it's reasonable to assume that between the level advantage and healing/revival item access that a player that has only been training one mon could probably force past one check to their type. Going with this, if the goal is to have an encounter in which training only one mon fails, encounters should stack checks to a given typing. But since the typing of the player's ace is unknown, you would need several encounters that are designed to deal with different individual typings. That sounds pretty close to the existing Gym setup.
In other words, no specific gym is trying to be difficult for every player that focuses on only one mon, but the league as a whole tries to be difficult for such players at least once.
In other words, no specific gym is trying to be difficult for every player that focuses on only one mon, but the league as a whole tries to be difficult for such players at least once.
A Groudon could've done Koraidon's role better.
Man is a super-ancient legendary Pokémon already capable of being ridden on (ORAS cutscene) and setting the sun to provide for past paradox Pokémon (Drought, Desolate Land), but it also has more lore, substance, and uniqueness to it than Koraidon ever will.
Plus Groudon's even a full on dinosaur and its primal forme is Fire-type.
Man is a super-ancient legendary Pokémon already capable of being ridden on (ORAS cutscene) and setting the sun to provide for past paradox Pokémon (Drought, Desolate Land), but it also has more lore, substance, and uniqueness to it than Koraidon ever will.
Plus Groudon's even a full on dinosaur and its primal forme is Fire-type.
There's the interesting sidenote in that while Groudon itself is ancient, it's obviously associated with Team Magma which pushed for humanity's progress.
Kyogre is where this falls apart unfortunately. In addition to being neither futuristic nor supporting Electric Terrain, switching to a Terrain breaks some of the interaction between the two (since Terrain can coexist with Weather but Sun and Rain are in direct conflict).