SPOILERS! Mysteries and Conspiracies of Pokemon

zeraora not being electric/fighting is Nintendo's Biggest Mistake.

on the topic of mono-electric pokemon, eelektross could pass as a poison or even a dragon-type with some minor design changes. i mean it's a snake/wyvern if you squint, and it gets 3 moves with "acid" (and coil and toxic), as well as dragon claw/pulse/tail + outrage

electric/dragon would probably just give it the appearance of "discount zekrom" but... electric/poison with levitate......
 
DrPumpkinz said:
See also: Pinsir and its many Fighting-type attacks.

A similarly bizarre group of Pokemon are honorary monotype Pokemon, like Gyarados and Gengar. Despite these Pokemon having two types, one of those types is almost completely ignored in its movepool and flavor text.
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The Gastly family in particular, only ever learned level-up Poison-Type moves in LGPE, and even then, Smog was the only damaging one of those. They don't learn a single Poison-Type move by level-up in any game, despite Gastly having poisonous gases.

At least Gyarados got Hurricane as a level-up move in SM...
 
So, doing some research on things when I came across an interesting discovery with the Snowpoint Temple:
Appears in-game:
Snowpoint_Temple_DPPt.png

3D model render:
Snowpoint_Temple.png

Probably easiest to see with the model render, but I just now realized the support pillars have dots on them like the Regi do.

"Well makes sense"

But that's not all. At first glance I thought "oh, I get it, the three complete pillars probably have the pattern of Regirock, Regice, and Registeel while the broken pillar probably had the pattern of Regigigas, cute". But then I looked closer and, no, that's not the case at all! Instead the first pillar has 5 dots in a "x" pattern, the second pillar has 6 dots in a hollow hexagon pattern, and finally the third pillar had 7 dots in a filled in hexagon pattern similar to Registeel's dot pattern. Presumably the 4th pillar would have 8 dots and probably be 3-2-3, but that's aside the point.
  • So, what's the deal? If you're going to have the dots on the pillars why wouldn't they be in the pattern of the Regi?
  • Why start at 5? Like are we supposed to think the side of the temple also has four support pillars and so the left side has 1 through 4, the right side has 9 through 12, and the back has 13 through 16? Is there a significance to the numbers?
  • And probably a nitpick, why even have the 4th pillar broken if it's just a random pattern of 8 dots? Like if the pillars were the Regi pattern it would make sense as it would imply it was Regigigas's pattern so were hiding its existence. But since that's not the case why bother? You're not going to make it look any more ancient, infact I would question why the people of Snowpoint didn't have it fixed.
 
If I had to guess they just made the asset to invoke the regi but not hold them accountable for trying to fit the full pattern on the pillars. So they just started at one that looked about like Regirock's H and incremented from there. Looked nice, looked like brail, makes you think "oh, the regi!". 4th pillar probably is meant to make you think there's a mysterious fourth regi to bring your three to.

& it's a historical ruin and not every temple in the world is up kept. Restoration efforts can take a lot of time, money, clearences, etc.

Not even the only time they've just gone with "vague braille", for that matter
Iron_Ruins_Pt.png


The platinum-exclusive ruins where you encoutner the regi all have this statue and as you can see it has 12 dots, divided across the body
 
ScraftyIsTheBest said:
I dunno, I find it really sticks out that several single-typed Pokemon in particular have that honorary second type in the form of their movepools and attributes, but don't actually *have* that type. I wonder what exactly went into the design process for that kind of Pokemon, and whether there's a design standpoint explanation for those instances or if there's an in-universe reason they would only be single-typed and not have a second type.
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One that really stands out to me is Psyduck. All its lore, all its Pokédex entries, and all its Anime appearances (of which there were lots) focuses on its psychokinetic powers. Heck, it's even in its name. It learns the usual suite of Psychic-type moves. Yet it's not Psychic-type.

I can understand why they chose to retain a pure Water-typing for it back in the Gen I days, as there were two Water/Psychic lines already (that being said, if given the choice I'd have made the Slowpoke line pure Water instead, as its lore is more centered around its slowness and carefree nature than its psychic powers). However, as you say, "honorary typings" are a thing and a Pokémon doesn't necessarily need to have a typing to exhibit the traits of one. New mechanics have given plenty of opportunities to showcase Psyduck's abilities. But despite Psyduck's frequent appearances in all Pokémon media and its psychic powers being the whole focus point of its lore, very little has been done to showcase them in the games.

For instance, you would think its headaches and psychic powers would be the perfect base for an Ability. Arguably, one could say Psyduck's innate psychic powers was the first description of abilities in Pokémon, years before they were formally introduced. But none of Psyduck's abilities have anything to do with them. There's Cloud Nine, whose Japanese name can mean "care free", which reflects on Psyduck's derpy and oblivious attitude. It also has Damp, which is a generic Water-type ability. Not a single mention of headaches that unleash its psychokinetic powers. Even the Detective Pikachu movie got that thing right. When Gen V came along with Hidden Abilities and another opportunity to give Psyduck the headache it deserved, it instead got ... Swift Swim.

More generations, more opportunities. But there was no Golduck evolution in Gen IV. No Mega Golduck in Gen VI. No Psyduckium-Z in Gen VII. No Alolan form, no Galarian fom. No signature move. All Psyduck has is that suite of widely distributed Psychic-type moves, none of which have any explicit connections to its headache problem. It's so strange that such a prominent Pokémon - even the favourite Pokémon of Junichi Masuda, reportedly - is so famous for a trait the games don't seem to showcase in the slightest.
 
p0ip0le said:
psyduck was actually considered at one point as a counterpart to Let's Go Pikachu, but was dropped for eevee bc they were too similar in color. who knows? we mightve gotten more Psyduck Lore if they decided to go with psyduck instead of eevee. its interesting to think about

(source)
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also probably because pikachu’s zippy zap or thunderbolt would make it’s starter psyduck matchup quite unfair
 
Codraroll said:
One that really stands out to me is Psyduck. All its lore, all its Pokédex entries, and all its Anime appearances (of which there were lots) focuses on its psychokinetic powers. Heck, it's even in its name. It learns the usual suite of Psychic-type moves. Yet it's not Psychic-type.
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I agree though I would say just making Golduck into Water/Psychic would have been enough. Psyduck can't control when it'll have access to its Psychic power and when it does it's usually just an explosion of psychic energy, so I kind of get why Psyduck can't use psychic powers. But Golduck? Its dex entries specifically say to use telekinetic power via the gem on its forehead.

So while Psyduck could remain pure Water but learned Psychic-moves, I feel like it's Golduck should have become Water/Psychic. "But then we would have had three Water/Psychic". First, in Gen I we had 3 Grass/Poison-type families (Bellsprout family only one feeling like it should be Grass/Poison), 3 Rock/Ground (Rhyhorn family the only one feeling like it should be Rock/Ground, maybe Geodude family), and 4 Normal/Flying (though I guess the last one can be forgiven due to how they decided the Flying-type should work, though they could have shortened that number by making Duduo family Ground/Flying).

I can understand why they chose to retain a pure Water-typing for it back in the Gen I days, as there were two Water/Psychic lines already (that being said, if given the choice I'd have made the Slowpoke line pure Water instead, as its lore is more centered around its slowness and carefree nature than its psychic powers).
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If insisted there would have been too many Water/Psychics, I would indeed change Slowpoke into a mono-type: pure Psychic. Like, what about Slowpoke makes it a Water-type? Because it fishes? And sure, Slowbro has a Shellder on its tail but the Shellder doesn't do anything, when we're battling we're trying to knock out the Slowbro not the Shellder attached to it (if anything it also getting knocked out is a bonus). "But what would Lorelei use?" I dunno, a second Jynx? She's an Ice-type specialist. Shouldn't be using a Slowbro anyway.

Codraroll said:
For instance, you would think its headaches and psychic powers would be the perfect base for an Ability. Arguably, one could say Psyduck's innate psychic powers was the first description of abilities in Pokémon, years before they were formally introduced. But none of Psyduck's abilities have anything to do with them.
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TBH in Gen III there really wasn't an Ability which would have worked with Psyduck's lore. Now Gen V introduced some possibilities for Hidden Abilities like Moody or Sheer Force, but guess they wanted to focus on it being a good swimmer... which they probably should have done in the first place as Swift Swim was introduced in Gen III.

Codraroll said:
More generations, more opportunities. But there was no Golduck evolution in Gen IV. No Mega Golduck in Gen VI. No Psyduckium-Z in Gen VII. No Alolan form, no Galarian fom. No signature move. All Psyduck has is that suite of widely distributed Psychic-type moves, none of which have any explicit connections to its headache problem. It's so strange that such a prominent Pokémon - even the favourite Pokémon of Junichi Masuda, reportedly - is so famous for a trait the games don't seem to showcase in the slightest.
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Maybe it being Masuda's favorite is why they left Psyduck mostly untouched?
 
Codraroll said:
But there was no Golduck evolution in Gen IV. No Mega Golduck in Gen VI. No Psyduckium-Z in Gen VII. No Alolan form, no Galarian fom. No signature move. All Psyduck has is that suite of widely distributed Psychic-type moves, none of which have any explicit connections to its headache problem.
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Speaking of fanservice, I always found it bizarre that Dragonite never got anything like Mega, Z-Move, Gigantamax, regional form, etc. Its the original Pseudo Legendary and Dragon type, you'd think it would receive special treatment, but alas nothing.
 
i always assumed the lack of a mega dragonite, at least, was something to do with the difficulty naming the mega stone - dragoniteite, anyone? i don't imagine that's true, though, because its name's probably completely different in japanese.
 
Total Clefairy said:
i always assumed the lack of a mega dragonite, at least, was something to do with the difficulty naming the mega stone - dragoniteite, anyone? i don't imagine that's true, though, because its name's probably completely different in japanese.
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It likely would have been Dragonitite similar to how Bannette's was Banettite.

Codraroll said:
Not a good excuse, I think. They could have made one. They made many other signature abilities, after all.
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Well, here's the funny thing about that: Cloud Nine was the Psyduck family Signature Ability.

Which is actually kind of funny because nothing about Psyduck family says it has anything to do with clearing the weather, but Slowpoke family does. If we look over to the Slowpoke family it has two Abilities: Oblivious ("Thickheaded" in Japanese) & Own Tempo ("My Pace" in Japanese). Now both Abilities fit Slowpoke certainly, though with HOW similar they were I wonder if we didn't have a switcheroo go on between the two.

Now Slowpoke is not in RSE, and with how prevalent weather was going to be (or they wanted it to be) in Gen III, GF decided they didn't want to keep such a useful Ability as clearing weather onto a Pokemon that wasn't going into be the Hoenn Regional Dex (and they had already locked down the Pokedex so they couldn't just switch out Psyduck for Slowpoke). So conspiracy time: they switched their Ability around, Slowpoke originally has Cloud Nine while Psyduck either had Oblivious or Own Tempo. Considering Own Tempo has to directly to do with Confusion I'm going to bet, if that what happened, this was probably meant to be on the Psyduck family... honestly I think the Psyduck family kind of won out on this end. Sure, its Ability doesn't match it now and lost an Ability that had flavor relating to it, but Cloud Nine has a much more useful effect than Own Tempo.

Anyway, just gonna say Heatmor and Krookodile both got a Signature Move in Gen VII, two gens after they debut. So, you know what, with how random that was, I wouldn't count the Psyduck family out of getting a Signature Move one of these days (maybe a Psychic-type Surf that then turns them into a Water/Psychic-type, flavor text saying they released all the Psychic power that was being stored in their head).
 
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R_N said:
I was going to say that Psyduck's Cloud Nine was meant as "head in the clouds" or some oblique reference to just sort of...going at its own pace.
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And that's kind of strange, since "going at its own pace" IS a trait of Psyduck's, but it's very far from its most notable attribute. It might as well have an ability called "Webbed Feet" or "Three Strands Of Hair" or "Being Yellow (Blue If Shiny)". So much lore about how its headache gives its strange, barely controllable outbursts of psychokinetic power, and instead they focus on its tendency to bumble around. Sure, that's a part of its personality too, but not the part it is famous for.
 
Most of the signature Gen 3 abilities don't have particularly strong flavor connections, and almost all Gen 3 abilities in general are mechanically benign. There also just weren't a whole lot of them. It isn't like today where every new Pokemon has a crazy signature move and/or ability that reflects some part of their lore.
  • Cloud Nine (Psyduck/Golduck)
    • Discussed at length.
  • Stench (Grimer/Muk)
    • They stanky.
  • Huge Power (Azurill/Marill/Azumarill)
    • Literally no flavor.
  • Shadow Tag (Wynaut/Wobbuffet)
    • Nothing to do with counterattacking or being a punching bag.
  • Sand Stream (Tyranitar)
    • I guess it's supposed to be the dust from the mountains it's destroyed? The flavor connection is looser than the sand it summons.
  • Rain Dish (Lotad/Lombre/Ludicolo)
    • They have dish-shaped heads. Nothing to do with ferrying others across ponds, being a dick to fishermen, or dancing.
  • Truant (Slakoth/Slaking)
    • Good.
  • Wonder Guard (Shedinja)
    • No flavor connection. No flavor to connect. Literally just a way to make a 1-HP Pokemon not suck completely.
  • Pure Power (Meditite/Medicham)
    • Again, literally no flavor.
  • Plus (Plusle) and Minus (Minun)
    • Good.
  • Rough Skin (Carvanha/Sharpedo)
    • They have rough skin. Nothing about being bloodthirsty fish.
  • White Smoke (Torkoal)
    • It makes white smoke.
  • Marvel Scale (Milotic)
    • Nothing to do with beauty.
  • Forecast (Castform)
    • Good.
  • Color Change (Kecleon)
    • Good.
  • Drizzle (Kyogre)
    • Good but horribly misnamed.
  • Drought (Groudon)
    • Good.
  • Air Lock (Rayquaza)
    • Good.
What I'm saying is that if Psyduck was given an ability in Gen 3 that reflected its headache, it would probably just be another Insomnia clone, if not just straight-up be Insomnia.
 
DrPumpkinz said:
  • Rough Skin (Carvanha/Sharpedo)
    • They have rough skin. Nothing about being bloodthirsty fish.
  • Marvel Scale (Milotic)
    • Nothing to do with beauty.
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  • Sharks are known for their Sandpaper-like skin. It's the same reason the Gible line have Rough Skin as their hidden ability.
  • To 'Marvel' at something is to look at it in awe, bring amazed by it, matching its Pokedex descriptions.
 
DrPumpkinz said:
  • Rough Skin (Carvanha/Sharpedo)
    • They have rough skin. Nothing about being bloodthirsty fish.
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It's worth mentioning that the japanese name of Rough Skin can be interpreted as Shark Skin (and it used to be translated that way, until the obviously non-shark Druddigon got the ability), and that Sharpedo's japanese name is very similar to that of Rough Skin.
 
Pure Power is "Yoga Power" so it at least forces a connection on the same level as Rain Dish, White Smoke, Rough Skin & Marvel Scale.
Generally I think something that reflect's a Pokemon's physical attributes is about as valid as its lore or personality. It's still drawing on something about that Pokemon. Argue about how valid it is that only they have that ability at launch, I guess, but considering all the other abilities out there I don't think it's THAT big a deal.


It is funny when they give a really weird ability to something as a signature just for gameplay purposes. Like Shadow Tag, nothing about Wobbuffet implies it could do that (though it does at least hide IN the shadows), but it makes the ability work so
 
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