It's a common occurrence that girls have a taller BST than boys, it usually evens out when they grow older.
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
It's a common occurrence that girls have a taller BST than boys, it usually evens out when they grow older.
The Eligible Pokemon for Amity Square, and how arbitrary they are for requiring "cute" Pokemon
Look, I know this is probably the testing ground for "walking with pokemon" feature from Yellow that eventually expanded in HGSS. but the arbitrary requirement for "cute" Pokemon made me think, what in-universe explanation that the Amity Square only permit those Pokemon that they consider "cute"? Are the other Pokemon are not cute enough?
Take Pikachu for example, yes it is cute, but is Pichu aren't as cute? Or are they implying that Raichu is hideous?
Then they throw a bone with the Starter Pokemon, but let's admit, their matured versions are becoming less cute. And then the bone with Eeveelution, fair enough but it's long overdue.
Funnily enough an NPC lampshade this that he's heartbroken that his GYARADOS and STEELIX are not permitted. Cuteness are subjective at all.
Also, from the cute Pokemon that are permitted, I raised a question to Drifloon. Why on earth the Pokemon that kidnaps childrens, is permitted to enter public park? Yes it looks quite cute, but from all cute Pokemon, included or not included, Drifloon is the last thing I will permit.
(Also, this is where I learned that Drifblim pre-evolution exist when I had no internet when playing Diamond, never know the Friday event at Valley Windworks and skipped the trainer in Fantina's gym)
Take Pikachu for example, yes it is cute, but is Pichu aren't as cute? Or are they implying that Raichu is hideous?
Then they throw a bone with the Starter Pokemon, but let's admit, their matured versions are becoming less cute. And then the bone with Eeveelution, fair enough but it's long overdue.
Funnily enough an NPC lampshade this that he's heartbroken that his GYARADOS and STEELIX are not permitted. Cuteness are subjective at all.
Also, from the cute Pokemon that are permitted, I raised a question to Drifloon. Why on earth the Pokemon that kidnaps childrens, is permitted to enter public park? Yes it looks quite cute, but from all cute Pokemon, included or not included, Drifloon is the last thing I will permit.
(Also, this is where I learned that Drifblim pre-evolution exist when I had no internet when playing Diamond, never know the Friday event at Valley Windworks and skipped the trainer in Fantina's gym)
My understanding is that at least the pre-Natdex DP list is mostly based on which mons already had overworld sprites, which Drifloon has as a static encounter. This does also raise the possibility that the Natdex mons were at some point intended to have other overworld appearances in DP.
Of course, this means the real missed inclusions are the various legendaries.
Most likely it's a pretentious status thing. Bunch of rich fucks who don't want Pokemon they don't like sullying the space.
Well that makes sense, it said that Amity Square is owned by Mr. Backlot, which his backyard contains fair share of those "cute" Pokemon. Notably he owns the monopoly of Pikachu habitat in the entire Sinnoh.
Here's a point for the Amity Square "what's cute?" question: is the standard by the parkgoers or the park owners? I wonder what the verdict would be on Pokemon that are well-kept or groomed but your average joe (like the player character) probably doesn't find cute necessarily (think Hairless/Sphinx cats for a real world comparison)? Could I bring a Bug Pokemon in if it has a clean and trimmed fuzzy coat? Let me walk my Slither Wing dammit!
Only confirm children holding Drifloon vanish, but not strictly that Drifloon drags them off. With Children it's also plausible that it directs them somewhere or they wander off, but that shouldn't be happening in a park with security that bar entry or exit and thus would see kids going in or out unsupervised.
I could argue that anyone bringing a caught Drifloon instead of a wild one would tell it "No, Bad" and give it the spray bottle if it tries abducting children in the park. Also being fair, Drifloon's Dex entries at the time suggest it tries to do this but it's too light to force anyone to go with it rather than being pulled itself, and even later Gens mention that Drifloon doing that is more a rumor or legend than something observably proven. The phrasing
Only confirm children holding Drifloon vanish, but not strictly that Drifloon drags them off. With Children it's also plausible that it directs them somewhere or they wander off, but that shouldn't be happening in a park with security that bar entry or exit and thus would see kids going in or out unsupervised.
The DP ones all are overworld sprites around npc areas (the friday drifloon, house pachirisu and pikachu you find around, psyduck that block your path etc), other than some of the national dex mons (which were probably added just for extra flavor). The PT ones are throwing you a bone and letting you take your starter in case you dont have any cute pokemon, and eevee was probably just adding another very popular mon to the park while keeping the restrictions imposed on bdsp to be a faithful remake
Been slowly piecing together a revamped Kanto-Johto Dex for a fan-work I have an idea for, and it kinda astonishes me how aggressively mediocre much of Gen 1 is. While the Gen 2 lines are pretty infamous for being incredibly underpowered when GSC first came out (though, thanks to the introduction of new evos, they're now arguably one of the strongest collection of lines), but Gen 1? For at least half the lines, there's nothing - no interesting kits, movepools that consist mostly of STAB moves and generic type options (like Ice Beam for Water) and zero strong playstyles. It's really striking when you look at it from a broad perspective, given how iconic the gen is, yet the chances are high that, if they didn't get an evo or some other major buff in subsequent gens, they're going to be outright worthless.
The Gen 1 roster kinda suffers from a combination of aging poorly with modern shifts in philosophy, ie early installment+being a product of their time, and the fact that the original 151 were designed as more of a set of RPG monsters in an RPG game that was designed as such.
Each of them had a "role" to fulfill within the context of the game and very few were designed to actually be "competitively" viable, a large portion of them are essentially more or less generic RPG world monsters because they were designed as such, while the ones who are particularly standout both in battle in later generations and the ones who are well known among players and the general fandom are the ones who had the biggest and most unique roles in the context of RGBY itself.
Like frankly, as iconic as Gen 1 is, the most well known monsters are the ones who actually stand out from both a design standpoint and an RGB gameplay standpoint (which was likely intertwined in a way). And that's actually a relatively small portion of the 151: most are forgettable because they are little more than generic RPG monsters with a generic toolkit because they're designed as mons you frequently meet either in the wild or in Trainer battles and you regularly beat up for experience for your own team, and little more than that at the time.
Among the more recognizable Gen 1 Pokemon are the starters, Pikachu, Eevee, and Mewtwo+Mew. The starter trio of Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle is obviously iconic, because they're your first Pokemon and they have standout designs accordingly and evolve steadily into Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise who go from cute and lovable base forms to powerful and badass final forms, and they are elemental users who also have a rock/paper/scissors relation with each other type wise, teaching type interaction in an intuitive way and setting an archetype every future mainline Pokemon game would follow: a Grass/Fire/Water starter trio. Mewtwo was the original special major legendary, and while it didn't have cover focus like future ones did, it originated the archetype as a 680 (then 580) BST monster found late and that only one is obtainable, and being the strongest Pokemon you can find but also hard to catch. Mew was an elusive Pokemon not intended to be obtainable but was in the code as a mysterious Pokemon that sparked discussion because of its existence yet not being obtainable, thus starting the trend of mythicals. The legendary bird trio is also iconic because they were the original sub-legendaries, above everyone else and strong, but less so than Mewtwo. Pikachu was one of the rarest early game spawns, which sparked interest in it from Day 1, and Eevee was a blank slate evolving into multiple elemental monsters that was also cute and thus sparked enough interest in it to expand upon it in the future.
Other well known monsters include Dragonite, the original pseudo-legendary who was high effort, high reward (insane amounts of effort to grind), the trade four, Ditto (because of its gimmick), Lapras, and Snorlax, the latter two of who were strong Pokemon at the time that had special roles in RGB.
But those were specific monster standouts: a very large portion of the Gen 1 roster was generic common monsters intended to be beaten up and look generic. The few who stood out for different reasons are the ones who are remembered and loved and later on were either good or got buffs to become good.
They definitely didn't age well as time went on and Pokemon's design philosophy changed over the years.
Each of them had a "role" to fulfill within the context of the game and very few were designed to actually be "competitively" viable, a large portion of them are essentially more or less generic RPG world monsters because they were designed as such, while the ones who are particularly standout both in battle in later generations and the ones who are well known among players and the general fandom are the ones who had the biggest and most unique roles in the context of RGBY itself.
Like frankly, as iconic as Gen 1 is, the most well known monsters are the ones who actually stand out from both a design standpoint and an RGB gameplay standpoint (which was likely intertwined in a way). And that's actually a relatively small portion of the 151: most are forgettable because they are little more than generic RPG monsters with a generic toolkit because they're designed as mons you frequently meet either in the wild or in Trainer battles and you regularly beat up for experience for your own team, and little more than that at the time.
Among the more recognizable Gen 1 Pokemon are the starters, Pikachu, Eevee, and Mewtwo+Mew. The starter trio of Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle is obviously iconic, because they're your first Pokemon and they have standout designs accordingly and evolve steadily into Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise who go from cute and lovable base forms to powerful and badass final forms, and they are elemental users who also have a rock/paper/scissors relation with each other type wise, teaching type interaction in an intuitive way and setting an archetype every future mainline Pokemon game would follow: a Grass/Fire/Water starter trio. Mewtwo was the original special major legendary, and while it didn't have cover focus like future ones did, it originated the archetype as a 680 (then 580) BST monster found late and that only one is obtainable, and being the strongest Pokemon you can find but also hard to catch. Mew was an elusive Pokemon not intended to be obtainable but was in the code as a mysterious Pokemon that sparked discussion because of its existence yet not being obtainable, thus starting the trend of mythicals. The legendary bird trio is also iconic because they were the original sub-legendaries, above everyone else and strong, but less so than Mewtwo. Pikachu was one of the rarest early game spawns, which sparked interest in it from Day 1, and Eevee was a blank slate evolving into multiple elemental monsters that was also cute and thus sparked enough interest in it to expand upon it in the future.
Other well known monsters include Dragonite, the original pseudo-legendary who was high effort, high reward (insane amounts of effort to grind), the trade four, Ditto (because of its gimmick), Lapras, and Snorlax, the latter two of who were strong Pokemon at the time that had special roles in RGB.
But those were specific monster standouts: a very large portion of the Gen 1 roster was generic common monsters intended to be beaten up and look generic. The few who stood out for different reasons are the ones who are remembered and loved and later on were either good or got buffs to become good.
They definitely didn't age well as time went on and Pokemon's design philosophy changed over the years.
While I agree with this I do find it funny how the King of RBY if you play PvP (which would be of some consideration if only because it was the Link Cable seller) was literally just a Bull.
Jokes aside, as Ironmage said in the original games it was mostly Pokemon which already had an overworld sprite. It feels like they were stuck between wanting to include this as a fun feature but didn't want to put that much effort into a side activity.
Of course, that back in the days where they needed to make a dedicated overworld sprite for each Pokemon they would want to be walking around with you in Amity Square. BDSP does not have this excuse. It has walking Pokemon as a normal feature. WHY is Amity Square still limited to just a few Pokemon? Actually, scratch that, why is Amity Square even still a thing? Oh, well, scratch that, it's because BDSP is a close 1:1 remake of DP so even if they wanted to expand on it or change it they weren't allowed to. But, still, with all Pokemon having 3D models, there's no reason to limit all Pokemon, or at the very least let all the small Pokemon allowed in.
I know, right? How can they confuse a Vigoroth for a Koraidon.
That said, a quick annoyance I had with the recent Mewtwo Raid: I've had a few raids fail because someone decided to bring in a Steel- or Dark-type (Iron Hands and Tyranitar, if curious). Um, HELLO, Aura Sphere! #LeechLifeMew4TheWin
You know what's funny, that comic shows Eevee among the Pokemon Mr. Fish is eating, despite it coming out years before BDSP added Eevee to the list of Pokémon allowed.
Jokes aside, as Ironmage said in the original games it was mostly Pokemon which already had an overworld sprite. It feels like they were stuck between wanting to include this as a fun feature but didn't want to put that much effort into a side activity.
Of course, that back in the days where they needed to make a dedicated overworld sprite for each Pokemon they would want to be walking around with you in Amity Square. BDSP does not have this excuse. It has walking Pokemon as a normal feature. WHY is Amity Square still limited to just a few Pokemon? Actually, scratch that, why is Amity Square even still a thing? Oh, well, scratch that, it's because BDSP is a close 1:1 remake of DP so even if they wanted to expand on it or change it they weren't allowed to. But, still, with all Pokemon having 3D models, there's no reason to limit all Pokemon, or at the very least let all the small Pokemon allowed in.
I know, right? How can they confuse a Vigoroth for a Koraidon.
That said, a quick annoyance I had with the recent Mewtwo Raid: I've had a few raids fail because someone decided to bring in a Steel- or Dark-type (Iron Hands and Tyranitar, if curious). Um, HELLO, Aura Sphere! #LeechLifeMew4TheWin
It annoys me how Victory Road trainers never seem strong enough to have collected all 8 badges. It's extremely common for them to only have 1 or 2 Pokemon (at a lower level than the 8th Gym Leader's ace), and in many cases they don't even have custom, non-wild movesets.
Obviously I get why: the challenge of Victory Road is that it's an endurance test, and it'd be brutal for super casual players to have to face a succession of Gym Leader-level trainers when their party's HP and PP are dwindling and they don't even know where they're going. If you want a fluent gaming experience, it's probably better to make the battles slightly easier so that the player doesn't feel like they have to backtrack and take a Center heal after every win.
However, I think I'd still prefer them to be realistically strong and I think there are two easy ways to create that realism without needing to up the actual difficulty significantly:
1) Add mandatory stuff between Gym 8 and Victory Road to the point where VR trainers can be on par with the final Gym Leader (at least level-wise) while the player has grown beyond that power level.
2) Design their teams in such a way (species, movesets, type coverage, etc.) that I can believe they won because of superior strategy, if not pure strength.
Obviously I get why: the challenge of Victory Road is that it's an endurance test, and it'd be brutal for super casual players to have to face a succession of Gym Leader-level trainers when their party's HP and PP are dwindling and they don't even know where they're going. If you want a fluent gaming experience, it's probably better to make the battles slightly easier so that the player doesn't feel like they have to backtrack and take a Center heal after every win.
However, I think I'd still prefer them to be realistically strong and I think there are two easy ways to create that realism without needing to up the actual difficulty significantly:
1) Add mandatory stuff between Gym 8 and Victory Road to the point where VR trainers can be on par with the final Gym Leader (at least level-wise) while the player has grown beyond that power level.
2) Design their teams in such a way (species, movesets, type coverage, etc.) that I can believe they won because of superior strategy, if not pure strength.
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The only excuse I could think of is that, since pretty much only the player and rivals are Trainer prodigies thus can have a full team on them at all times, most of the trainers in Victory Road are people who just barely managed to beat all the Gym Leaders. They have a full team, but when not in a major battle they only have a handful of Pokemon with them as that's the amount of Pokemon they can handle taking care while training them. They likely figure "once I'm done training this Pokemon/these few Pokemon I'm going back to the Pokemon Center anyway, so no need to have a full team". For some it's perfectly fine if they lose to a random passing trainer as they're only training; but those who lose confidence likely those who struggled the most and, even though they didn't have their full team, still sees this kid who's passing on through who is able to manage a whole team on their downtime while they're struggling with half if not less (and then said trainer goes on to become Champion).
There's really 2 battle changes I've been waiting for:
1: Auto-heal upon leaving combat. I've spoken in the past about how Pokemon has gotten away from "endurance grinds as difficulty", with massive amounts of money, free items handed to you, and auto-heals scattered throughout. Make it official and just put us at full after each fight, then up the difficulty of individual battles to compensate. Pretending like we're going to have fainted mons at the end of a Cave when you had the rival hand us 12 revives at the start of the cave is a bit of an insult.
2: Admit that what we're facing is rarely, if ever, a trainer's full max-level team. Maybe they're only training the two we see. Maybe their lead and backup lead have both fainted by now. Maybe they're specifically challenging us with a team they think we should beat because that's the job of a gym leader. We've seen it with the rival(in theory, though Nemona never actually produces any of the mons she used on her hunt). They should make that clear for everyone.
This could also help encourage players to use more coordinated and intentional strategies in their in-game teams. The most efficient and fluent way to play through existing main series games is to give each party member maximum neutral coverage, because ideally they all need to be able to sweep through two- or three-Pokemon teams on their own. Otherwise, you have to switch and take damage, which then requires healing and eats into your time and/or resources.
I suspect I'd be more happy keeping a situational utility move over a random Normal-type attack if my Pokemon could work as a team in more challenging battles (and in fact needed to do so to ensure the win) without requiring individual healing after every trainer.
FUN FACT: Scarlet & Violet has a sorta Auto-Heal mechanic, emphasis on the "sorta". Cause I think GF missed what "auto" meant. Outside of battle, instead of sorting though your bag for your healing items, you can instead open the menu, hover over a Pokemon, and press the "-" button and the game will use a healing item for you. Sounds simple, yes? Well, yes, simple indeed, TOO simple.
First of all the game only uses Potions & Drinks, this is purely an HP healing mechanic. Want to heal a status condition? Go sort through the bag. Want to use a Berry instead? What are you doing here, there's an entire bag category for you to sort through!
Second the game has a set order of what healing item to use if they're available: Potion, Fresh Water, Soda Pop, Super Potion, Lemonade, Moomoo Milk, & finally Hyper Potion. While this isn't necessarily a bad way of doing it, it's also not the most efficient way. I can only think they did it this way to not accidently use a stronger healing item which could be used in a battle. This is also probably why Berries aren't used, as you can have a Pokemon hold one of them so don't want to accidentally use up a Sitrus Berry. Though still, that means if you have a whole batch of Potions late game just sitting in your bag, you'll be mashing the "-" button when it would have just been easier to sort through the bag for likely the equal dozens of Super Potions, Lemonades, and Hyper Potions you have to heal in all one shot.
Third, you didn't misread me saying "mash the - button". Because, despite being an AUTO Heal, pressing the minus button will only use ONE healing item at a time. Not only did they have it so it'll use the basic healing items from the order of least to most, but also only will use one at a time.
GameFreak, WHY?! It would have just been better if a special menu with the healing items (including curatives and Berries) popped up for us to pick from than bothering with this inefficient mess!
If GF was THAT worried about the Auto Heal misusing a healing item, than they should have made a new Key Item which you filled with Potions and after a battle, if it has juice in it, it'll heal any Pokemon with loss HP back up to full or however much juice it has left in it (going from the first Pokemon in your party down the line). As for curing a Pokemon, best I can think of for that is just being notified your Pokemon has a status ailment, select the Pokemon in the menu, and you'll be given what options you have in your bag to cure the status ailment.
This is actually something I really appreciate whenever I replay RBGY/FRLG. A lot of the trainers in Kanto's Victory Road have 3 or 4 or even 5 Pokemon, unlike a lot of later games: there's only one trainer in Kanto's Victory Road with 1 Pokemon, vs three in Hoenn and then either three or five in Sinnoh depending on how you count. BW's refreshingly has none but B2W2 and all games onwards fall back into this. Mt Lanakila is pretty pathetic in USUM, there's one double team with a full party of six but for the most part every trainer has one or two Pokemon on their team.
I often find it more puzzling that a lot of trainers in Victory Road seem stuck despite not being far from the end, but then maybe this explains it? Yes you can make the argument that some NPCs don't use their full parties against you but I think that's only a relevant argument in cases where there'd be a reason for them to have more (such as a Surfing NPC without a Pokemon that knows Surf) though I'd say it probably is relevant for some examples here.
Though even some elite trainers do overspecialise, which can only take you so far. I often think this about trainers encountered in battle facilities like the Frontier; you'd think diversity would be the key to reaching such a lofty height, but there are still dedicated Hex Maniacs and Bug Maniacs and Kindlers and Aroma Ladies. They're almost certainly the best Hex Maniacs and Bug Maniacs and Kindlers and Aroma Ladies, but overall they're probably not better than trainer classes like Experts and Gentlemen and Youngsters who use a more varied range of Pokemon. There's that Black Belt I've always liked in FRLG's Indigo Plateau who complains that he can't beat Agatha, which makes me wonder how he defeated Sabrina (possibly he avoided her gym and got his eighth badge somewhere else). Or in the anime there's that guy Ash encounters who won numerous badges with his Marowak - yes he's also shown to have a Doduo, but he specifically emphasises using Marowak to win his badges so it's clear that his main battling partner is Marowak. It's an extension of the whole "truly skilled trainers should try and win with their favourites" thing - using Marowak exclusively probably isn't a very good strategy, but if it's the way you want to win you'll keep trying, no matter how hopeless it might seem whenever you meet someone with a Water-type Pokemon. If you're an overspecialised trainer who only uses one type - or perhaps even only one Pokemon - you can make it so far, but probably not all the way.
But I'd say 3 is the absolute minimum for a bog-standard NPC who is believably supposed to be winning in gyms and challenging the Pokemon League. Even 2 is somewhat plausible for someone struggling, but making progress: there's a couple of Cooltrainers in GSC who stick out in my mind, one who has a Butterfree and Bellossom and the other who has a single Charmeleon. The latter mentions that he lost against Morty and my reaction was always "so get more Pokemon". But a lot of Cooltrainers/Ace Trainers have the more standard 3 and many of them run with some variation on the typical Fire/Water/Grass triangle (often it's at least two of those types with a varying third).
The lack of non-level moves is something I often overlook as I don't know to what extent average NPCs are given atypical movesets (though I do agree trainers in Victory Road should get them, if anyone). But even so, if a trainer has Ivysaur/Charmeleon/Wartortle that's generally enough to signal to me that this trainer does use strategy and types to their advantage, even if their movesets are dire.
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RBY/FRLG has another advantage in this area because of Giovanni's absence. I think it's fair to assume that most of the trainers there did not get a badge from the Viridian Gym, so the highest-level Leader they had to defeat was likely Blaine, which makes their low-levelled teams easier to swallow (also if we're looking at Gen 1 specifically, RBY's Gyms as a whole are generally easier to defeat with a super-underlevelled team than any other region's Gyms).
What I love about that guy is that his existence is yet another blow to Bruno, the most useless Elite Four member of all time. He's repeatedly proving his supremacy against Bruno as a Fighting specialist before losing to Agatha and having to start all over again.
I mean it's Bruno's own fault for using a pair of Onixes rather than the other two fully-evolved Fighting types in the Kanto dex or even just a pair of Machokes.
I would believe this if they had a single badge check to access Victory Road, but the guards specifically ask for the Earth Badge rather than just how many badges they have as a number.
Adventures RBG arc had an explanation I kind of liked since Red and Blue couldn't challenge all the Gym Leaders due to their affiliation (current or former) with Team Rocket: There was a Preliminary tournament for competitors in the League proper that those two had to win, while people could register with all 8 Badges to be seeded for the Main bracket (which I believe is how Professor Oak in disguise entered to surprise Green for their match).
While obviously the League in the Manga does not work the same as the game, I think this would make a reasonable compromise for the traditionally structured Leagues (compared to Paldea where it's more like an exam/BAR to pass than a competition with 1 winner); the Pokemon League challenge simply being about who is the strongest and can reach the Elite Four to issue a challenge, with the Badges being a mark of ability but not a requirement to participate outright.
(Pardon the following being a bit of wish-listing on my part)
This could especially be interesting, ironically, with Paldea's less rigid structure, where the League is an endgame challenge the player simply needs to complete a certain amount of the game to try, not all strictly Gym Leaders, and then different bosses could encourage different ideal playstyles: Treasure Hunt example has the Gym Leaders with traditional switching battles, Titans are 1 vs Many akin to raids that might encourage strategic thinking for a massively stronger opponent (maybe not literally raid scaling but like 6 Level 30's vs a Level 50 type deal), and Team Star is a series of weak opponents to run the Gauntlet before the main fight to perhaps work on pacing a team and not burning out good moves too early (conceptually since I know this isn't how the Auto-Crowd Battle system works in this case). It could be interesting for Speed Running or challenge runs as well to scrutinize "what fights are the fastest or most reasonable with the options I'm limited to", but I've rambled long enough on this one
tl;dr Gen 1 has the badge check but there are ways to write non-badge holders as competitors.
Maybe he got in under the wire and earned his Badge from the other Saffron Gym before it got delegitimized in the duel against Sabrina’s Gym.
Gen 1’s worldbuilding really was something else.