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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
Me but with starters since Gen 5. Haven't vibed with them since like Gen 4, though Gen 6's set was mostly nice. I always seem to ditch whatever I choose for my Gen 5 starter, but that's probably because BW2 has so much good shit to replace it with.
Pokémon Conquest is canon.
https://m.bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Distribution_of_'Nobunaga's_Black_Rayquaza'_announced and https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/m2YAAOSw5h9jvxA7/s-l500.jpg confirms it.
It's a spinoff games but spinoff games can be canon too. The most blatant example is the Pokémon Ranger series, where you were able to directly transfer a Manaphy egg from those games into the Gen 4 mainline games.
As for how Mewtwo and fossils ended up in Conquest? Time-space shenanigans happen in Pokémon all the time. Dialga and Arceus are in the game. They could've something to do with it. They could have also flown through an Ultra Wormhole and ended up in faraway regions beforehand.
That is all.
https://m.bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Distribution_of_'Nobunaga's_Black_Rayquaza'_announced and https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/m2YAAOSw5h9jvxA7/s-l500.jpg confirms it.
It's a spinoff games but spinoff games can be canon too. The most blatant example is the Pokémon Ranger series, where you were able to directly transfer a Manaphy egg from those games into the Gen 4 mainline games.
As for how Mewtwo and fossils ended up in Conquest? Time-space shenanigans happen in Pokémon all the time. Dialga and Arceus are in the game. They could've something to do with it. They could have also flown through an Ultra Wormhole and ended up in faraway regions beforehand.
That is all.
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An Event Distribution (which doesn't require owning the game) and a TCG card, both specifically made to promote said spinoff game, is hardly proof Conquest is canon.
Could Conquest be canon? Sure, I guess, if they want that real world historical references to be part of the Pokemon canon. Not like it really changes anything.
And odd that the first thing you jumped to to explain Mewtwo and the Fossil Pokemon were Ultra Wormholes instead of the Space-Time Distortions in Legends: Arceus, which notably had you able to catch Fossil Pokemon (as well as Porygon, another manmade Pokemon like Mewtwo). Also, while indeed you'll need a time-space distortion to get the Fossil Pokemon, part of me wonders if it isn't possible for a "natural" Mewtwo to exist. Like, Mew's are super rare, though they still exist (and thus I'm assuming they're reproducing if rarely), so who's to say there isn't a genetic mutation that could occur which transforms Mew into a Mewtwo (just because science is able to artificially cause it to happen doesn't mean the trigger doesn't exist without it).
Could Conquest be canon? Sure, I guess, if they want that real world historical references to be part of the Pokemon canon. Not like it really changes anything.
And odd that the first thing you jumped to to explain Mewtwo and the Fossil Pokemon were Ultra Wormholes instead of the Space-Time Distortions in Legends: Arceus, which notably had you able to catch Fossil Pokemon (as well as Porygon, another manmade Pokemon like Mewtwo). Also, while indeed you'll need a time-space distortion to get the Fossil Pokemon, part of me wonders if it isn't possible for a "natural" Mewtwo to exist. Like, Mew's are super rare, though they still exist (and thus I'm assuming they're reproducing if rarely), so who's to say there isn't a genetic mutation that could occur which transforms Mew into a Mewtwo (just because science is able to artificially cause it to happen doesn't mean the trigger doesn't exist without it).
If I'm remembering correctly, when you gen an Anorith swarm in Conquest, the NPC notes that they're normally retrieved from fossils. That would seem to indicate that they have access to fossil revival tech. Just add it to the anachronism pile with the working power station and autonomous cranes.
Doesn’t someone at one point in Conquest make an off-hand remark about people in other regions capturing Pokémon in balls? If Conquest were canon (I’m not saying that it is, or that I think it is, because I don’t), that would suggest that it actually takes place in a time period that is a lot more contemporary than the game’s aesthetic would suggest, and the societal differences are just a cultural Ransei thing, rather than a historical progress thing.
With that in mind, Legends: Arceus establishing that Poké Balls are a recent invention at the time of its story thereby creates a rough parameter for the timeframe in which Conquest could occur in the main series continuity, assuming that it actually did.
With that in mind, Legends: Arceus establishing that Poké Balls are a recent invention at the time of its story thereby creates a rough parameter for the timeframe in which Conquest could occur in the main series continuity, assuming that it actually did.
IIRC it was the Grass type warlord Motonari who said he had a book that described people using balls to capture pokemon, and that it was something fascinating to him.
Can someone please for the love of god explain where the "Megas are an inherently broken mechanic" meme came from??? I charted it out as you can see here. 6/48 actually genuinely broke the base! 12.5%! But yeah they totally deserved to be purged without a big universal rebalance
Seriously what is the origin of this utterly baseless bad faith critique that I feel like I see everywhere nowadays
What you meant to say is "<generational mechanic> is broken gamefreak sucks" meme, which is just typical of your average singles player who wants to play full stall(tm) and hardly seen outside of smogon cause the rest of the players just enjoy the fancy lights.
Sir you need to stop reading reddit
The unflattering answer that popped into mind immediately is that they still believe the cuts were done for balance and therefore any identifiable group that was entirely cut must have been overpowered because otherwise they wouldn't have been cut.
More interestingly, it almost feels like being limited to one per team increased the perception that Megas were particularly strong. Technically, having a Mega on your team is also spamming the most Megas you are legally allowed to have at once. A surface look at a team wouldn't be able to tell you that something like Chlorophyll Venusaur, Smooth Rock Tyranitar, or Life Orb Latios would be taken because they work better for that team instead of only because the Mega Ring is being used for Charizard. For all that level of analysis knows, every competitive team isn't taking 6 Megas only because they are explicitly prevented from doing so (meanwhile, in the complete madness that is Mix and Mega, people still run Light Clay on their screens leads). There's probably a joke in here somewhere about how VGC handles box legends.
1: I agree banning Megas was the wrong move.
2: The Generational super-mechanics are definitely power creep
3: A lot of the megas were a significant buff. Like, yes, Mega-Char isn't broken, but it took an NU mon and put it in OU twice, that's a lot of power from a single mechanic
4: Even if most of the mons are fine, people won't play the "fine" ones. OU will be dominated by the top handful of mons, so that's the ones people will complain about. Same with VGC, except VGC has no way to remove things like Mega-Kanga so that's all people will see for the entire generation
I also have a strong hunch Mega are no longer done simply because GF got bored with them or it started to get difficult coming up with Mega designs for Pokemon they didn't envision with the mechanic. Say what you want about the Mega designs introduced in XY, but they feel like GF had at least a direction they wanted to go with all the Pokemon they chose. But then when you look at the Megas introduced in ORAS, and I personally get a feeling from quite a few of them their designs didn't have as much enthusiasm behind them. Like they still had some leftover from XY's development, and the idea of making more was exciting, but then they started designing and they realized they used most of their good ideas and, though they still came up with some good ones, the struggle started to set in (like from interviews we know poor Flygon was planned to get one but they couldn't agree on a good design).
With designing news ones become difficult and likely them thinking of new super mechanics, they decided to cut their losses and file away Megas. NOW, this doesn't mean Mega can't come back, but GF would have to be inspired to (which means they may not do anything unless they ever do anything with Kalos or possibly Hoenn again).
I disagree and honestly think that is just overthinking.
They just had a shift in philosophy and decided that the supermechanic must be generic
Generic supermechanic has several benefits.
- It's easier to design, as you only need to do 1 per classification(types) rather than a dedicated design per each of the pokemon
- It's easier to understand, when "everyone can superize" compared to "only specific species can for reasons"
- Still allows some unique forms to be assigned to plot relevant, fan favourites, or whatever they feel the inspiration for
- It's also easier to link the supermechanic to a region phenomena in order to justify in-lore why it can't be in next game / anime segment
- It's less prone to fan complaints about "Why X got a super but Y didnt"
- Last but not least, it can be used in game on your favourite mon and on a different mon every time, compared to requiring to acquire the specific elected receivers every time
The main downside ofc is that generic supermechanics basically always end up in a "rich gets richer" scenario and just make already strong mons stronger rather than buff the viability of lower tier mons, but I think you can see how the upsides (both design and gameplaywise) vastly beat the downsides.
Megas ultimately were discontinued due to the much bigger effort required to design them compared to the benefits. That's really all there is to it.
They may or may not show up again in future if they feel like it (I doubt), but I don't think we'll ever get more of them nor any comparable "pokemon specific" mechanic. At least not in the mainline games.
They just had a shift in philosophy and decided that the supermechanic must be generic
Generic supermechanic has several benefits.
- It's easier to design, as you only need to do 1 per classification(types) rather than a dedicated design per each of the pokemon
- It's easier to understand, when "everyone can superize" compared to "only specific species can for reasons"
- Still allows some unique forms to be assigned to plot relevant, fan favourites, or whatever they feel the inspiration for
- It's also easier to link the supermechanic to a region phenomena in order to justify in-lore why it can't be in next game / anime segment
- It's less prone to fan complaints about "Why X got a super but Y didnt"
- Last but not least, it can be used in game on your favourite mon and on a different mon every time, compared to requiring to acquire the specific elected receivers every time
The main downside ofc is that generic supermechanics basically always end up in a "rich gets richer" scenario and just make already strong mons stronger rather than buff the viability of lower tier mons, but I think you can see how the upsides (both design and gameplaywise) vastly beat the downsides.
Megas ultimately were discontinued due to the much bigger effort required to design them compared to the benefits. That's really all there is to it.
They may or may not show up again in future if they feel like it (I doubt), but I don't think we'll ever get more of them nor any comparable "pokemon specific" mechanic. At least not in the mainline games.
I would also add that you could probably create yet another sub-category for Megas (perhaps with some overlap on "already broken" entries) of "the Mega isn't a worthwhile gain", notably with MMX and a case to be made for Garchomp and Tyranitar.
If I ever see another claim megas were an overpowered mechanic, I'm going to give them a Dynamax Ball to the face
We probably will see Megas again someday, but mainly if they do show up they'll be in a future game centered around Hoenn or Kalos when we revisit those regions again in the future. Why those two regions specifically? Because Mega Evolution from a lore point of view is pretty strongly associated with Kalos and Hoenn and the phenomenon behind it is mainly taking place in those two regions where Mega Evolution energy is prominent and the Mega Stones were all discovered there.
Their philosophy with super mechanics these days is to rotate old ones out and create a new one introduced in every generation, and each generation's "super mechanic" from a lore standpoint is entrenched in that generation's flagship region's lore. Z-Moves were the super mechanic of Gen 7 and lore-wise it's strongly attached to Alola, Megas and Z-Moves were both removed from Gen 8 and Dynamax was the super mechanic of Galar, and we all know that's associated with Galar. Meanwhile, Dynamax itself was removed in Gen 9 and now we have Terastal, which is strongly associated with Paldea.
And we all know full well at this point that once we get into Gen 10 that Terastal will be out the door and a new super mechanic will take its place. And that super mechanic will be associated with Gen 10's flagship region.
With that said, when we revisit these regions again the corresponding super mechanics will return with them for sure, because from a lore standpoint each super mechanic's in-universe phenomenon is strongly associated with the region it debuted in (Megas are also associated with Hoenn due to ORAS being Gen 6).
As I said, it's also a philosophy of rotating new gimmicks in and old ones out every time. Z-Moves and Dynamax are both gone, the former was also dropped after Alola, and Dynamax was now dropped after Galar.
I think Terastal handles being "generic" the best, however, because it's so generic that no one gets special treatment ie a special version of Terastal, Z-Moves and Dynamax tried to be generic but also specific at the same time: you had generic versions of Dynamax and Z-Moves but then certain mons also had signature Z-Moves or special versions of Dynamax called Gigantamax.
I think the main contrast between Megas and the other mechanics is that Megastones weren't inherently associated with a region or phenomena.
They were just these things that put in the bracer would let the appropriate pokemon megaevolve.
Z-moves were designed as "almost generic", as a implied connection with Alolan territory was stated but tecnically I don't recall any specific energy shenenigans connected to them. I assume that while designing SM and USUM, they still hadn't fully decided if they wanted to discontinue mechanics or not. I vaguely remind reading that Megas were actually originally not meant to be present in SM and keeping them in was a decision made at later date (and also why they are never used during the game and only show up in the Battle Tree and in the postgame story in USUM which features dimension travel shenenigans).
However once they fully committed to the super mechanic discontinuation, both Dynamax and Terastal were heavily designed "in lore" to have a deep connection with some natural phenomena only present in Galar / Paldea and not present elsewhere.
What I find funny is that Paldea kind of went back a bit to the "not hard-locked" approach to the gimmick in the region's lore with Terastalizing.
In Gen 8, Dynamax was explicitly only doable in Galar because it depended on an energy that only existed there from Eternatus and was just part of the environment that they drew up in the Stadiums and such. By comparison, Megas and Z-Crystals had regions of origin, but were conducted primarily using objects that simply occur naturally in those regions; though in Z-Moves's case, they kind of overlap with Ultra Space energy if I recall, so you could also just bring them back in any game where the Ultra Beasts make an in-story appearance rather than being strictly-mechanical transfers. Most of the Journeys anime had Megas and Z-Moves come from outside Galar and brought back, while to my recollection any on-screen Dynamax happened in a Galar setting battle, so the company doesn't stick hard and fast to the idea these mechanics can't travel, they simply choose not to (which was arguably one reason the cut mechanics were heavily criticized despite being shown prominently in the anime).
Terastal sort of returns to the previous approach, with enough wiggle room to go whichever way they choose. Terastal crystals only occur in the Great Crater of Paldea as the origin/source of the Phenomena, but it's not the means the player or other characters use to employ it, that instead being the Tera Orbs. The Tera Orbs are explicitly designed to allow Terastalization to be done away from the source Crystals, and seem at least commonplace enough that a student at the Region's biggest school can simply request to receive one despite the Crater itself being off-limits. They can be recharged as part of a routine service like visiting a Pokemon Center compared to how even Galar had Centuries-off Energy concerns about Dynamax for most of the plot, and at no point is the mechanic itself brought up as dangerous, simply serving as an energy source for the actual conflict that caps off "The Way Home".
In short, Terastal as a mechanic the trainers invoke is once again tied to an object that can be taken out of the environment rather than the environment itself within the lore of Gen 9. That said they also added the aspect that Pokemon have inherent Tera Types which is the closest thing to an out they would have in future media, by simply saying the actual Pokemon are incompatible with Terastal outside of Paldean Origin (compared to how any instance of Gengar can Mega Evolve if given a Gengarite). Gen 9's DLC has us going outside of Paldea with explicit mention of another region (compared to Gen 8's being remote but still Galarian areas), so this suggests we can take Terastal outside Paldea and it should work unless the lack of it ends up being the Gimmick of the DLC (pending how they handle Terapagos), which I'm skeptical about since Dynamax/Gigantamax came up frequently in Gen 8's DLC content even if not within its sub-plots.
Tbfh I think there's just a misunderstanding of how the "another region" thing works, because ultimately they say "another region", but it may just well be another part of Paldea OR something that is still somewhat related to the Terastal phenomena.
Most notably, with the actual DLC pack name being "The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero", I am somewhat confident that both DLC substories will end up tieing with the SV story, and that the Terastal Phenomena will be present in both the subacquatic academy and this ""other region"".
(Also, let's be honest, we know that the "other region" will just be the hidden area of the map on north east....)
I wouldn't say that. The "other region" of part 1 "The Teal Mask", aka Kitakami, seems to be a totally different landmass from Paldea, and it's a school sponsored field trip to another land that has basically a completely different culture from Paldea, seemingly more Japanese-esque. I think this is a completely and utterly separate landmass from Paldea. It's probably going to be a totally separate region in a technical sense: we're going to have two regions in one game again with this I imagine except unlike Johto/Kanto where that was one landmass, these are two separate landmasses entirely. Ogerpon and the three heroes also suggest that this place has its own culture.
I think that hidden area of the map on the northeast is likely where Part 2 of the DLC, or "The Indigo Disk", will take place. While Part 1 is a school trip to another region, Part 2 seems to be taking place closer to Paldea (if not outright in Paldea itself), considering it's focusing on Terapagos the "Disk Pokemon", who is known to be in Area Zero, and it's starring the player being an exchange student in the Blueberry Academy, which was stated in all official information to be a sister academy to the Naranja/Uva Academy. The fact that the Blueberry Academy and Naranja/Uva Academy are sibling schools means that the Blueberry Academy is very likely close in location to Paldea as a result, so I think that hidden area is where the Blueberry Academy and its associated lands are.
The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero's added locations in other words are, from what I can gauge from it, basically taking SwSh's Expansion Pass structure and doing it in a more extreme manner. Part 1 of SwSh's DLC, aka "The Isle of Armor", took place on a nearby island, which Part 1 of SV's DLC, "The Teal Mask", is doing a more extreme version of by taking place in what is basically another region, aka Kitakami, which is presumably far far away from Paldea. Part 2 of SwSh's DLC, aka "The Crown Tundra", takes place in mainland Galar in the southern part of the landmass (aka same landmass), which Part 2 of SV's DLC will likely also do by taking place in that whited out area in the northeast, which is clearly also an extra landmass and related bodies of water that are still part of Paldea.
On this note, I can't help but wonder if the megas were all broken meme is in part the result of a "fox and the grapes" effect. The fanbase has been made to reluctantly realize that nearly 50 highly publicized and largely well-liked alternate super forms have been expunged from the main series with no clue when or even if they'll return, so from there they come up with this stuff to rationalize their absence being a good thing. It's kinda like what Ironmage said but with a slightly different relationship, not so much "Megas being cut was good and just" as "Megas are cut? Well, actually, they always sucked". Those sound kinda similar but there's different vibes to them
I feel like people are a lot more positive on megas after they were cut. When they were there, people criticized that they were just the regular mon but bigger, that GF only gave megas to already strong and popular mons and that the mechanic was half-baked. Frankly, all of these are legitimate
GF took that personally and then every single one of these problems happened/was amplified when Dynamax came to be, which is around the time I noticed a lot of the Mega negativity take a backseat even if not necessarily disappear. Got some perspective.
While I did liked the concept of Dynamax, the execution all-around felt too half-baked to male it worth it, and it does not help that the mechanic itself went too far. Kaiju battles are a potential, but this ain’t cutting it.
But that doesn’t stop me from deprecating Mega Evolution. If anything, I used to be very positive with Mega Evolution, despite issues of their own. But as time passes, while cutting it is not an ideal solution, I did realizes that the flaws were way worse than I thought.
Between too much bias on fan favorites, abysmal balancing act with Mega Evolution, pushing things too far with Mega Rayquaza and the Primal Reversions, tiring out too fast with the designs, the risk of far worsened item bloating and so on… I don’t think Mega Evolution returning is going to please everyone if some of these flaws aren’t addressed, or worse, have these flaws amplified to the point people don’t want them anymore.
Also not only that, but Dynamax amplified/created all of those problems while being significantly less interesting than both Z-Moves and Mega Evolution both from a gameplay and a flavor point of view.
Regardless of what you think about Mega Evolution from an execution standpoint, one cannot deny that Megas are genuinely interesting and in many ways fun both from a gameplay and flavor standpoint. Mega Evolutions are effectively an evolved form of the mon who Mega Evolves, they have a brand new appearance that is a progression of their original form, they are the pinnacle of their evolutionary line. And there's a lot of new designs that came from it. And battle wise, they have higher stats in some areas, in many cases different abilities, new type combos, different stat builds, and whatnot: they're like a new and stronger Pokemon. It's a very fun mechanic, with the Pokemon capable of it basically unlocking their "ultimate forms", with the flashy new and standout designs, and mechanically they change with new battle capabilities or just being stronger overall.
Dynamax on the other hand isn't anywhere near as interesting. It's not only insanely overpowered and broken, but mechanically it's active for three turns, involves spamming Max Moves for stat boosts/weather/terrain, and then wears off. No fundamental stat boosts to the Pokemon either: it's a temporary generic HP boost but the rest of the Pokemon's stats are fundamentally similar. But flavor wise it's also pretty bland: it's basically "haha Pokemon goes giant". No new design, it's literally just the mon but super large. Now there are a few cases where they do have a new design, Gigantamax, but in those cases gameplay wise that's still not as unique as Mega Evolution, as there are no stat changes, ability changes, or anything: just a unique signature G-Max Move which can be in many cases inferior to the base Max Move. There's not enough of a difference there to justify the different special form that mon has access to, unlike Megas where the mon fundamentally changes in many ways and gets stronger in a genuinely fun way.
I suppose that's where my issue with Dynamax as a mechanic is: aside from the fact that it was insanely busted and overpowered and required no skill for its use, it's just too boring for how strong it is. The generic version of it is literally "haha Pokemon goes giant sized", and while there's a "special" version of it that changes appearance, the ones who got it feel cynically motivated and there's not enough of a difference between their special G-Max forms and the generic Dynamax version to justify the different form (it's literally just one special move that can be in many ways inferior to the base Max Move), and mechanically it's also basically nothing more than an HP boost and special generic high powered moves that cause powerful secondary effects to an extremely overpowering degree: in other words, it's overpowered in a really boring way. There's no real depth to the mechanic whatsoever.
Even Z-Moves, while not as interesting to me as Mega Evolution or Terastal, had more interesting things going for them because status Z-Moves had a variety of interesting effects if used with certain non-damaging moves to a point where you could feasibly justify even using otherwise useless or situational non-damaging moves on a moveset for an interesting effect with a Z-Crystal in tow.
A lot of the Gmax moves had the same or very similar animations than their max move counterpart, and all of them but the Galar starters' had identical base powers to their max move counterpart, which made them feel even less like unique moves in their own right and more like "it's just the regular max move but we swapped out the effect for a different effect".