Megas are a purely competitive and end-game mechanic in most cases. Have you forgotten how few mega stones were available any time before the elite four in X/Y. I mean you can only have 1 mega at a time in your party, what good would it be if every Pokemon you could catch early in the game had a mega stone..\
It seems to me like Gamefreak intend to give everything a mega and are doing them in an order of what they themselves or their fans want the most.
I'd be pleased with even.. just sporadic patches that put new megas into the games. Each and every last mega is an enjoyable reveal, every fan of that Pokemon (and every Pokemon has fans) are overjoyed, and a new viable Pokemon makes its way into the metagame.
I actually found that a bit annoying. One of your early "missions" in the game was to discover the secrets of Mega Evolution, got a handful of Mega Stones to help you out, and then end game tells you "okay, here are the dozen other Mega Stones, have fun". Actually the whole Mega Evolution mystery seemed pointless being there's a tower dedicated to Mega Evolutions filled with equally dedicated trainers (including a Gym Leader), Sycamore couldn't pick up a phone, take a trip there, or something? But anyway, while I understand having some Mega Stones for certain very powerful Pokemon being left for post game, I do think most should have been able to be found as you played through the game.
It was mentioned Mega Pokemon (at least for those in XY) were mainly picked due to popularity and design potential. Could be different in ORAS now that they're established so they don't have to sell us the idea anymore, though I imagine the design team has a big meeting to decide which Pokemon gets a Mega Evolution and pass around some design ideas. So yeah, obviously in the picking there's going to be bias or just general forgetfulness (how many Pokemon do you forget exist until reminded of them). I also imagine nostalgia plays a big part, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the newer GameFreak employees played Pokemon themselves so have fond memories of Gen I & Gen II. Thus they're getting a lot of Mega Evolutions while new generations like IV & V aren't.
While I do have some complaints, I do like Mega Evolutions as it is giving new life to that Pokemon (even if its only for its Mega Form), even if its only temporary. As you said, you can only have ONE Mega Evolution at any time and so that creates competition between the Mega Pokemon, each one has to prove why you should pick it over another. Those who have fans can rely on its fans, but outside of its fanbase there's rough competition.
Hopefully not every pokemon gets a mega. I mean with OR/AS we'll be at 46 Mega stones, I doubt anyone wants hundreds of Mega Stones floating around.......
Either way I really hope they continue to target pokemon that really needed it competitively or at least offer a different role they can perform.
No more Mega Blazkien / Mega Lat Twin like pokes (tho Lat Twins really aren't out yet so....), which are simply better stats with no new ability or playstyle to already great pokemon.
After Gen VI they'll probably ease with releasing a whole batch of 20+ Mega Evolutions per new game. If they don't they will probably start overwhelming people, but as of right now they want a nice selection people can pick from and have new generations just provide "boosters". At least I hope. However, as I said, if its fully evolved it can get a Mega Evolution. You can say that a certain Pokemon is too weak, already overpowered, or has a gimmick that won't work if it gets a Mega; but according to the rules laid down if its fully evolved its a candidate for Mega Evolution. Yes, including that one. And that one too. No, not that one, remember it got an evolution in a later gen, but it's evolution can possibly get a Mega Evolution.
Actually I'll sort of defend Mega Blaziken as its Mega Ability is its Hidden Ability normally. And while they did give away a Torchic with its Hidden Ability that everyone got, remember that unless you trade one to ORAS the Torchic you'll get in that game will have Blaze. But the Eon Duo are inexcusable, in more ways than not changing type or Abilities (aka no increase in Speed).
My friend and I had this idea, that GF wants lessen the amount of new Pokemon per Gen, because if they followed the Gen V plan and making as many new Pokemon as possible, there would be less chances for anyone to catch them all and many mons would get forgotten. I'm thinking the creation of new megas isn't only helpful competitively, but that it also allows them to create new Pokemons, without having to expand the Pokedex too much.
Mega Evolutions do seem like GameFreak's solution of reducing the number of Pokemon released, but with that said I do think they should still be a bit more careful of which Pokemon get Mega Evolutions if they normal evolution potential. However I'm okay with them releasing less Pokemon, but as long as there's enough that they are primarily noticeable throughout the game. I would like major NPCs like Gym Leaders, Elite Four, Champion, Villain Team's Admins & Bosses, Rivals, etc. to not only have that generation of Pokemon as their "star" Pokemon but also have at least half of their team be of new Pokemon. Maybe the designers could even sort of plan around this, like they know who at least the Gym Leaders and Elite Four are so they make enough Pokemon of that type for them to use and fill in whatever is missing. And Mega Pokemon don't count as a "new" Pokemon, if someone is going to have a Mega Pokemon they also need to have another Pokemon from that generation to act as their "star" Pokemon.
Audino could have potential, but... healer ? wtf ? lol
Funny enough it probably should have gotten Mega Launcher, if anything to just increase the amount Heal Pulse healed. :P
But yeah, Healer makes sense for it and on paper it doesn't sound bad... until you write in it only has a 30% chance of curing its ally. It's already bad enough it can't cure itself, but at least make it so that it's guaranteed to cure its allies, at least upon being send out. Of course Healer would be one a list of Abilities that could really use a buff.
And I agree that this is a good idea. There are too many pokémon as it is and there aren't many places left where GF can get inspiration for new pokémon (just look at how mega Pidgeot resembles Braviary and you'll get a feeling that GF is running out of ideas). Also, mega evolution is a highly popular mechanic that allows GF to please its fanbase and introduce new pokémon (in a way) without stuffing the game with more bug, rock, flying types that tend to disappear in the crowd. A brilliant move.
Not to mention we should totally expect some crazy new mechanic like pokémon fusions by Gen VIII.
As much as I'd love to say one day "Ow, there are one thousand pokémon!!" I think GF has realized that creating over a hundred brand-new pokémon every 3~4 years is tough and makes them less special. And now with mega evolutions they have the perfect (and most valid too) excuse to ease up on the pokémon creation front and focus on exploring the potential of the ones that already exist.
Wha? There are PLENTY of things left for GameFreak to find inspiration in. I have an entire list myself (bored nights) and
Serebii has one too (at the moment their forum servers are kind of experiencing a, well, crash. But they should be back up eventually and it shouldn't effect this link). Heck, Pokemon really hasn't branched out into other mythologies that much except for the home country Japan's. But with Pokemon now going global they have a chance too really start looking into other mythologies for inspiration (imagine if they base a region in Greece/Rome...). And as Mark Twain once said "truth is stranger than fiction", I dare you, go to Google and type in things like "strange animals". Heck, just look around your house (or even your refrigerator)! And to top this all off, there's always another way of looking at things. For example, Ninetales and Zoroark are both based on the mythical Kitsune but different aspects of it (Ninetales has the appearance of a Kitsune while Zoroark has it illusen powers). There's still plenty of inspiration, of course it all depends if GameFreak can see or willing to find these inspirations (which, as I said, is just a Google search away).
Kyurem wants to know why he's being forgotten.
Because he's not complete yet. Actually, maybe if they do focus on Pokemon fusion we can get a complete Kyurem, maybe even have him be the poster mon for it.
I didn't forget it. I even thought of mentioning it, but I figured it wouldn't be worth it. Kyurem-B and Kyurem-W are two Kyurem forms that happen to be obtainable by fusing Kyurem with Zekrom and Reshiram. But they're still Kyurem, just like Giratina-O is still Giratina.
When I said GF might introduce some crazy new mechanic in the future (just like they did with mega evolution last year) and used pokémon fusions as an example, I meant something unlike what we've seen before. Like pokémon A + pokémon B = pokémon C. What happens with Kyurem is: Kyurem (A) + black dragon (B) = Kyurem-black, which is still pokémon A, just in a new form.
Just wanted to clear that up. Now back on topic, it's indeed weird that the official website hasn't been updated yet. We've had some really early leaks over the past few months but that didn't stop the site for being updated 1~2 days later.
(And to be honest, I'd be glad it if those scans turned out to be fake. Yes, it's the edition where we learned we'll be able to fly through Hoenn and catch hundreds of legendaries from past generations, but it's also the edition we found out mega Beedrill and mega Pidgeot are being released in ORAS. I'd love it if we could delete that last part. Not the megas themselves, they are great, but GF could wait one year or two to release them. How about X2/Y2? They've missed XY but there's still time to make up for it.)
But yeah, that's probably just a delay.
I'd imagine to make Fusions work they'll probably need to do what they did with Kyurem. Basically they'll need to focus on one Pokemon fusing with others since they'll need to use the "base" Pokemon's HP stat. We can't fuse together, say, Heracross and Pinsir because who's HP stat will we be using? We sort of need a third Pokemon to act like a "base", even for a a fusion that combines all the members together. Now this does mean we'll probably need to create a whole batch of new Pokemon to provide the base, but it will still be an alternate form of that Pokemon (but that doesn't mean it can't radically change the way it plays depending on who it fuses with).
Has CoroCoro been officially released yet? They may want to give CoroCoro a day or two of being the first to giving the inside scoop before updating the site. In addition I'm sure the site is going to provide us more info and pictures. Let us also not forget that the main site is probably preparing for the release of the demo, so next site update could be big.