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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
Discussing Eeveelution typings is like beating the fossil of a horse at this point but that won't stop me from chipping in
I agree that connecting the Eeveelutions to starter types doesn't make any sense and that kind of symmetry is an irrelevant consideration, but the 'special types' thing isn't the design philosophy either.
There's no pattern with the first three because at that point the 'wildly diverging evolutions' gimmick was enough on its own. Espeon and Umbreon's typings are the closest non-Normal parallels to light/day and dark/night, in line with how they showcase time-based evolutions. Glaceon and Leafeon's typings reflect contrasting climates to best showcase location-based evolutions. Sylveon's whole deal is pretty self-explanatory.
The lack of a Dragon evo isn't some anomaly!
I agree that connecting the Eeveelutions to starter types doesn't make any sense and that kind of symmetry is an irrelevant consideration, but the 'special types' thing isn't the design philosophy either.
There's no pattern with the first three because at that point the 'wildly diverging evolutions' gimmick was enough on its own. Espeon and Umbreon's typings are the closest non-Normal parallels to light/day and dark/night, in line with how they showcase time-based evolutions. Glaceon and Leafeon's typings reflect contrasting climates to best showcase location-based evolutions. Sylveon's whole deal is pretty self-explanatory.
The lack of a Dragon evo isn't some anomaly!
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A2, yeah, going down the list of Berry functions in Gen II, let's go-
wait.
freeze?
freeze.
burnt berry cures freeze. not burn. and the ice berry cures burn.
wait.
freeze?
freeze.
burnt berry cures freeze. not burn. and the ice berry cures burn.
Perhaps they went with "hot berry to defrost" and "cold berry to cool down".
Being burnt implies it is hot, and thus would melt the ice. In a similar vein, Ice Berry is cold and would help treat the burn.
Well, you are meant to put ice on a burn, after all.
(NB: you're not, and I wish that popular media would stop claiming that you are. I've seen it in multiple films and TV series - putting ice on a burn is actually not a good idea at all. Just a personal peeve.)
Yeah I guess this makes sense. It's just kinda weird at first glance, you'd think the items would be coordinated more closely (burn heal...heals burn after all). Never had this many people quote me before lol
tbf "coldrunningwater berry" doesn't quite run off the tongue in the same way
have another one :P
Though it also seems like Levitate has been rarely used since that decision. Notably Gen VI and VIII had no new Levitaters (not counting Mega Latis and Galarian Weezing), with the only newest one after Gen V being Vikavolt in Gen VII. And there have been a few candidates for it in those gens, as there have been a few in past gens. Seems like its been harder and harder for them to justify giving a floating Pokemon Levitate when they have a few other Abilities they rather give it instead. At this point maybe they should consider retiring Levitate as an Ability and change it into a +4 Priority Move, can give it a wider distribution & give the Pokemon who had it as an Ability more unique Abilities. Maybe also change the flavor text of a few notable Ground-type moves a bit to give a quick throwaway explanation why the floating Pokemon are still being hit by it:
- Bulldoze: "The user strikes everything around it with flung dirt clumps by stomping down on the ground. This lowers the Speed stats of those hit."
- Earthquake: "The user sets off an earthquake causing the crust to collapse and flip upwards striking every Pokémon caught on it."
- Fissure: "The user opens up a fissure in the ground and sucks the target in. The target faints instantly if this attack hits."
- Magnitude: "The user attacks everything around it with a ground-shaking-and-upheaving quake. Its power varies."
FUN FACT: Anthea and Concordia originally did not have names in the Japanese version, simply referred to as the Goddess of Love & Goddess of Peace. Black 2 & White 2 revealed their Japanese names: Verbana and Helena.
Sadly not much is done with them even though they have an interesting backstory. Them and N are foster siblings, Ghetsis adopting them (hence Ghetsis is also their foster father). From how its worded in Black 2 & White 2, Ghetsis found N first and soon after adopted Anthea and Concordia to be his caretakers (cause even Ghetsis knows if he raised N it wouldn't end well). They don't seem to have any special powers with the way they talk about N's powers and have trouble fully understanding N's feelings. If I were to add my own speculation, the reason Ghetsis did this instead of just hiring a maid is to give N a sense of family, keep the number of people N interacts with as limited as possible, and also have control over the caretakers as well by having them see him as their father. With how passive they are I'm going to guess there's some mental abuse there; Ghetsis probably made sure they knew they were here just to support N, probably giving them the titles of Goddess of Love & Peace to both define their roles but also dehumanize them by making them feel like a guiding spirit, there but only for another.
Nah, since they're Gym Trainers they have keys to the backdoor (you can't see the backdoor cause of the camera angle).
If there's any Gym that needs Trainers with Cut it would be Celadon Gym. Erika and the Gym Trainers with her are trapped in the inner garden in the Gen I games:
Gym Trainer 1: I can't believe none of us remembered to bring a Pokemon with Cut.
Erika: *Yawn* It's alright, a challenger will come eventually.
Gym Trainer 2: One did, a few hours ago! He came in, sweeped, and left saying he'll "smell us later", pervert.
GT1: Who knows when the next one will show up, Erika... Erika?
Erika: ZzZzZzZz
GT2: She fell asleep again.
GT1: Figures. I'm not feeling tired... wanna make out I guess?
GT2: I would but that creepy old man is still watching us from the upper outdoor window.
GT1: Ugh, him again, I would go out there and give him a piece of me he won't forget, BUT NONE OF US BROUGHT CUT!
Hey, underestimate a HM slave at your own downfall:
Don't quite follow your theory. If we were to disregard the Eeveelution's Types being based on the Special Types before Gen IV, I would more imagine the following happening:
Gen I: They would still likely do Fire, Water, & Electric as Eevee's gimmick was based on the Evo Stones. Why those Types specifically? Because they're the closest to representing the Fire, Ice, & Lightning trifecta that's common in element/magic/energy systems. In addition, at the time, it was probably hard for them to imagine how the mammalian Eevee would become part plant and Moon Stone really didn't have a Type attached to it.
Gen 2: Now, reason for new Eeveelutions was not only because new Types but also new evolution method: Friendship & Time of Day. They wanted two Eevees that evolve with high Friendship, one during the day and one at night. Now the Dark-type SORTA fit the night time one, but that would leave Steel for the day and that would take some logic leaps to do (like maybe have it grow reflective metal scales it uses to absorb and reflect sunlight?). No, it wouldn't quite work with the duality, so instead they focused on a Type which had relation to Dark which they could more finagle a relation to the day/morning/sun: Psychic. FUN FACT: If the betas are anything to go by, it looked like originally, or at least at one point, they were going to stick with the Evo Stones: In addition to giving Eevee a Grass-type evo, Umbreon was going to be a Poison-type and evolve with the newly introduced Poison Stone. Even then we see a duality thing going on as Grass & Poison can be seen as opposite Types. But when they ditched the Poison Stone they changed Umbreon to Dark and likewise had to change their plans for its partner Eeveelution.
Gen 4: Now this is where things get a bit iffy because, honestly, there's no reason for either Leafeon or Glaceon should exist. If one basis for new Eeveelutions is new evo method, why then did they give Leafeon and Glaceon a unique one? The major new evolution methods that Gen IV brought was (1.) evolving while knowing a certain move, (2.) location based, (3.) gender based, & (4.) having a certain Pokemon in your party. Gender based and having a certain Pokemon in your party wouldn't make sense, so there was evolving while knowing a certain move and location based. Now, aside from the Eeveelutions, the only other location based evo was a magnetic field on Mt. Coronet that was Steel-type focused. As for moves, the only non-Normal ones Eevee learns is the Dark-type Bite and the Ground-type Sand-Attack. So, yeah, if they really wanted to give Eevee new Evos I guess it should have gotten a Steel-type via magnetic location and then Normal or Ground-type via knowing a certain Move of that Type.
Gen 6: New Type means best way to advertise it is with a new Eeveelution, hence we got Sylveon. In addition its evo method, at the time, was also unique to itself as it was attached to a normally non-evolution mechanic, Pokemon-Amie.
So, our Eeveelution line-up should be Flareon, Vaporeon, Jolteon, Umbreon, Espeon, Steel-eon, Normal/Ground-eon, & Sylveon.
Calling it now:
- Dragon-type Eeveelution for Scarlet.
- Steel-type Eeveelution for Violet.
- Reason they held off doing a Fairy-Dragon pairing in Gen VI because they wanted to use Dragon in a Special-Physical pairing so they could start making Physical-based Eeveelutions.
Except only Sylveon evolved from Pokemon-Amie.
And "Gassy Berry" brings in a lot of unfortunate implications before thinking "this will at least unfreeze my Pokemon".
I'll point out that Espeon evolved by the Heart Stone in this version of the game (alongside Xatu & Politoed).
Leafeon "co-existed" with the other 2, though judging by its late placement in the dex at the time, was likely not a super married concept.
If I had to guess the timeline and conceits were probably like this:
Unknown point prior to Space World 97, the "korean index" that had pokemon sprites from various points in development:
-They had decided on new stones, so why not have Eeveelutions to show off those stones (Espeon, Umbreon)? And, we added 3 eevees last time, so how about we finish the "fourth" of the stone evolutions, and also add Leafeon ("Rifi")
-Side note, but especially at this time the game was in black & white, so Espeon was all white & Umbreon was all black (their go-to for a lot of poisons), so even at the time the two were a lot more paired than Leafeon
-Incidentally the next two pokemon in the big dump of Pokemon sprites were Bellossom & Tsubimitto, 2 other Poison Stone evolvers
Some Point between initial concept & SW97:
-They had gone ahead with Espeon & Umbreon. They're earlier in the dex and had design touch ups (especially noticable on Espeon). They evolve by Heart & Poison
-Leafeon, however, was probably being cut. If I had to guess, they probably thought it extraneous.
SW97:
-Espeon & Umbreon are now in color and had a few extra touch ups. They're paired together in the dex.
-Leafeon is brought back as a consideration. It's at the end of the dex where several other "late" ideas landed. It had a moveset and evolution method still implemented at this point, but design wise it's still the same
Sometime between 97 & 99:
-The Heart & Poison stone conceit is dropped. If I had to guess, they probably thought the Heart Stone barely functioned, it evolved a weird mishmash of Pokemon. Poison Stone was dropped and seemingly replaced by the Sun Stone (it now evolved Weepinbell). Friendship evolution as a concept introduced
-Also, several dark type Pokemon had been removed and they needed new ones
-So, with the old method gone and a new method around, and a need for dark type...Umbreon was already kind of darkness inspired in design, so itwas made Dark Type. Since there's the two of them, they could evolve by friendship and then go one step further to have them BOTH evolve by friendship they can evolve by day/night (something not present anywhere else). They already had a black & white motif that further adds to the flavor.
-Leafeon probably fully got the boot at this point. It was still evolving by an old style, it wasn't as linked thematically, perhaps they didn't care for the design they went with, etc. Lots of reasons
So... Magnet Rise with priority?
Hurricane is 100% accurate in rain. What about rain would make heavy winds always hit? If anything it'd make more sense the other way round IMO, heavy winds making water moves more accurate because the water is going everywhere at a high enough speed that it doesn't matter that it's not as concentrated.
Having recently downloaded both Pokemon X and Pokemon Ultra Sun to my 3DS, it's a real missed opportunity they didn't continue the dongle system featured in DPP and Dream Radar.
Seriously, there are nine different Pokemon games I could have in the cartridge slot while I play X or Y and yet none of them has any effect at all. What a waste.
Seriously, there are nine different Pokemon games I could have in the cartridge slot while I play X or Y and yet none of them has any effect at all. What a waste.
Wouldn't that only be possible if you got the 3DS game through the eShop?
Yes, that's what I meant.
Speaking pragmatically, locking features behind the digital version harms the relationship of TPCi with video game stores. This type of thing will never happen for that reason, since video game stores are still valued in the video game industry [for being the place kids' grandmothers go to buy them a Christmas present].
However, nowadays there's an altenative to dongling: save files. This is used in Pokémon occasoinally, BDSP ofc gives mythical Pokémon for having save data of either/and SwSh and LGPE, but it could be put to better use. The dongle system was really cool, and I would love to have different encounter tables in some areas as a reward for being a loyal Pokémon fan who buys lots of games.
A very good point.
I like what PLA has done - instead of the dull "here's your Pokemon, enjoy" routine SwSh and BDSP did, you get a quest unlocked. From what I've seen the Shaymin and Darkrai quests in PLA are pretty barebones, but as you say I hope they build on this and put it to better use in future.
Real-life hurricanes are giant swirling rain clouds, and even if it was originally intended to refer to hurricanes (its Japanese name is ぼうふう which Bulbapedia translates as Windstorm but it might be a word people in Japan commonly use to refer to Hurricanes, I don't know) strong rain storms associated with lightning are very windy, so Hurricane is 100% accurate for the same reason Thunder is 100% accurate.
It's arguable whether accuracy is the most "logical" buff to give Thunder and Hurricane, but it's more mechanically interesting than something like a damage boost. In general, I've found that trying to change Pokemon to be more "logical" almost invariably makes it worse.
I'd be fine with the idea of savefile bonuses so long as the bonus isn't locked off if you don't have it.
If it were like, say, early access, it would be neat. Otherwise, it's 60+ USD for one or two Pokémon.
You make it sound like you're paying 60 dollars solely for a single Pokemon instead of getting an entire mainline Pokemon game. The closest thing to something like you are describing is that Mew in the Pokeball Plus that can be sent to either LGPE or Sword/Shield(the only way to get Mew in LGPE since you can't transfer ones from Go or Home), but even then the Pokeball plus itself is 1)a controller for LGPE 2) Pokemon Go+ accessory in the form of a Pokeball instead of the normal wristwatch 3) a device with the Pokewalker-like ability to store a Pokemon from LGPE or Sword/Shield into it(though it only has any sort of mechanical benefits for Pokemon from Let's Go)
It is if there's a Pokémon you like but don't have, that is present in a game you have but it's only available by owning/beating a game you don't want.
It's pretty much like finding paywalled content in the game - you can get it without trading, but...
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You make it sound like there was no such thing as needing another game to get certain species in the past. Like how in Gen III Slowpoke(and thus Slowbro and Slowking) are only available in Leaf Green, they are not in Fire Red or any of the Hoenn or Orre games. Just do what someone would do back then, and get a friend with the Pokemon you want. Or just a rando online. Of the five mythicals obtainable via savefile bonuses, the one released the last chronologically, Arceus, has been available in many different events since 2009.
And before you bring up the fact that Slowpoke is breedable, version-exclusive Legendary Pokemon have been a thing since Ruby and Sapphire, What if Tommy owns Alpha Sapphire, but he has no interest in owning X or Y, but he really loves Xerneas after seeing the anime or something. Is that situation any different from the situation you are bringing up? The only difference is that the current situation allows the possibility to get those Pokemon with your OT, while Tommy can never have a Xerneas that has the OT of his Alpha Sapphire trainer.
In this day and age, it's not hard to find people willing to trade you mythicals online. Especially since all all of the save bonus mythicals (Mew, Jirachi, and Arceus in BDSP, Shaymin and Darkrai in Legends) have been around for around for years, with Arceus, the one released the last Chronologically among them, having been available since 2009. It's like complaining about version exclusives and trade evolutions. You either buy both required games(and 2 systems for trade evolutions), or get someone to trade you one.
Not to mention all of the save bonus mythicals have been obtainable in at least one title with a cloning glitch of some sort.
Yup. Infact give Magnet Rise priority too. The context of the moves means different distribution (at least for Magnet Rise. What Pokemon would get Levitate is obvious from the designs, but Magnet Rise can be given to any Pokemon with electrical or magnetic capabilities).
Oh no, please, let's not start this argument again! Both sides, those who support save file locks and those who have criticism against them, go to your corners and don't talk with each other. Don't even look at each other. Especially no Hexes.
Let's just agree to disagree and move on.