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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
May be because for first time in 10 years they had a situation in VGC where the fairy plate was available but not legal but was also the only way to get that 20% fairy boost, so they felt like it was time to correct this issue.
It wasn't legal??
Sure but it was using Regulation D, which was post Home and allowed transfers to be in VGC (to everyone's chagrin)
Did they disallow all the Plates? Because they're tied to Arceus? Even though it's plainly available through Legends Arceus, the game where a chunk of the newly legal Pokemon were from....
There was a very short timeframe before worlds, where the plate was in the game and obtainable but not legal due to Home transfers not being allowed yet, and that was actually relevant because it was a item Flutter Mane would have liked to run to not need to use Choice Specs / Booster Energy for the extra damage
Yep. It's just bad. Fun fact, per the speedrun community: You have to successfully do 2 out of the first round's 10, and 5 out of the second round's 15. After that point, you as a casual are free to set the switch down and go get a drink, you can't fail from there(and it's also faster).
I have an irrational hatred of that move so I'm glad to hear it's excluded. (Sorry.)
Onto something else that's annoyed me today: Bloodmoon Ursaluna having a fixed Hardy nature.
It's not fixed natures that I mind per se, because those often serve a purpose: there's often an element of strategy to it when event Pokemon used to be distributed with special moves, like Eruption Heatran being Quiet or Aura Sphere Raikou in Gen IV being Rash. And a lot of recent distributions of Pokemon with fixed natures have actually tended to be useful: in the case of the Melmetal, Zeraora, and Magearna you get from Home all three have relatively optimal natures and IVs, presumably because you're not able to reroll them. This is good. I'm not sure I'm not the only person to have played through the entirety of XD only to wind up with a Lugia with a crap nature and IVs.
But generally there's a justification for it when this happens. This one being fixed to Hardy just feels stupid, not least because mints now exist. It wouldn't be so much of an issue if you could get more BM-Ursaluna, but no! That form is the only one of its kind: you can't evolve your Ursaring into it or breed ones that can. I get that it's meant to be a unique individual but that doesn't mean the nature should be locked. Even Ash-Greninja didn't have a fixed nature, and Own Tempo Rockruff was breedable.
I've griped about this before, but there's an increasing sense with a lot of these decisions that Game Freak wants to railroad players into having a certain experience when they play. Which is pretty much the opposite of what I like(d) about Pokemon games: everyone's journey is multifariously different. Even two people with the same team might have played the game in totally alternative ways. Don't want to catch legendaries? Cool, no-one's making you. Don't want to complete the Pokedex? You don't actually have to. Don't want to do sidequests like contests or musicals or movies? There's no requirement to.
And there's nothing inherently wrong with BM-Ursaluna being unique and unbreedable, if not for the fact that it feels rather the main series is taking their lead from Pokemon Go on this. With the exception of - ironically - Ursaluna, Go has taken the approach of releasing new evolutions of existing older Pokemon as discreet species rather than as direct evolutions. Alolan Forms were introduced in Pokemon Go in 2018 and you STILL cannot evolve Pikachu, Cubone, and Exeggcute into them in regular gameplay - Exeggcute and Cubone had two time-limited events last year where this was briefly possible, but nothing equivalent was done for Pikachu. Scyther, Rufflet, Bergmite, Koffing, and Mime Jr are also completely unable to evolve into Kleavor, Hisuian Braviary, Hisuian Avalugg, Galarian Weezing, and Galarian Mr Mime respectively. It's a frustrating way to release new Pokemon that are technically part of an older line but functionally completely different species.
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It's not unbreedable, you can breed Teddiursas from it.
Oh fair enough, I read yesterday that it couldn't breed at all. Still doesn't change the fact that nothing can evolve into it though.
It's an ancient Ursaluna that washed ashore relatively far from home and adapted to its new environment and continues surviving to the present day
I think they gave it a Hardy nature because they thought it'd be cute.
It's not a major issue or anything, I just honestly find it a baffling decision.
What bugs you about Sludge Wave, QuentinQuonce?
Ogrepon meanwhile is locked to Lonely, which is another of those flavor decisions which further points to BM Ursaluna having it because they thought it would be fun to reference it's situation. So it doesn't feel that baffling really
I am a bit surprised the Loyal 3 didn't get fixed natures, though. There's ones that fit their personalities and statlines and they also have Titan-styled battles which seemed to be the secondary reason for all the fixed natures (Ursaluna, Ogrepon, the Titans, Miraidon/Koraidon all have fixed natures and Titan battles, so...). Guess they wanted to equate them to the Treasures of Ruin?
Also, about not getting to evolve it. Copium it may be, it's possibel we can evolve Ursaring into both Ursalunas in SV in Part 2. If they finally decide to let us have the Peat Block, then it would make sense to evolve into normal Ursaluna in Paldea/Blueberry and Blood Moon in Kitakami (or Timeless Woods specifically).
I mean should have just let us do that now, but the fact they didn't just put it in the unbreedable section does give me a little hope
alongside Kleavor being in the blueberry dex, implying that yeah if the black augurite is coming back then SURELY the peat block is too. Surely.
Okay so this is, as I said, purely an irrational thing but then clearly that's my vibe today
So Sludge Bomb's one of my favourite moves; it was the only Poison-type move introduced in Gen II and it finally gave that type an actually decently powerful attack. Very much the Megahorn of the Poison-type if you will, except actually learned by a bunch of stuff. Cool name, cool animation, and the interaction with the guy you get it from in GSC amuses me because he says it "makes him uncomfortable" and asks you to take it away.
Then Sludge Wave gets introduced. It's basically the same move except it hits everyone in exchange for a lower chance of poisoning them, so felt ever so slightly redundant. And I know Poison moves don't tend to have very varied names (they're mostly "toxic x" or "poison y") but the name similarity stands out to me because it's literally two places away from Sludge Bomb in the TM list - for which it kicked out Shock Wave, a move I liked infinitely more.
I like Ogerpon but teal mask should be a similar held item just like the other 3 masks. A really minor thing that's annoying.
On the False Dragon Titan battle, Tatsugiri doesn't actually give Dondozo boosts. 
Hm, if they must "lump them" with another region, Meltan with Alola and Hisui with Galar makes the most sense.
But, is having a special release/small set really out of the realms of possibility? Like say they do Alola but the Meltan family is notably missing. This would likely great some buzz, maybe draw in the attention of people who weren't even aware of the Sitting Cuties line. "Where is the Meltan family"? Is it being grouped with the Galar Pokemon or released on its own? Well, the answer comes in a few months: SPECIAL RELEASE: Meltan and Melmetal! Now suddenly, two Pokemon who would have otherwise possibly been lost in the crowd, are now getting their own spotlight which puts more eyes on them than they would have before (and likely more sales).
Same for the Pokemon released in Legends: Arceus. Wait a few months after Galar's set and release all the Pokemon introduced in L:A in their own little "Hisui Set". More attention to a group of Pokemon who may have been overshadowed by the ones introduced in a main series title.
While what they may do here is 3+ years away, we may get a glimpse of their thinking in the upcoming Kalos Set. Because Gen VI means Mega Evolutions, a group of Pokemon who are not listed with the new gen Pokemon in the National Dex AND later got more members in the Gen III Remake (as well as an alternate version of them with Primal Groudon & Kyogre). While no one would bat an eye if the Megas and Primals were released alongside the Gen VI Pokemon, no one would either if they were released months later in their own "mini" set.
BTW, I think Regional Forms are likely going to be included with the main release. Not only are they directly named after the Region, but they're used in a way that they're treated as part of the dex (they can be used as an "Ace" of an NPC of boss) and Galar & Paldea expanded upon Regional Forms by giving them new evolutions which are part of their dex.
The entire point of the line is the sheer amount being released at once. It's every Pokemon, in more or less every form, under one umbrella. That's the pull that brings you in and is sort of the real marketing appeal of showing them all at once and having a press release list all of them out.
Otherwise it's just a plush release that they do all the time, with smaller lines. It's what separates them.
So if they do Meltan & Melmetal "special" it would likely be how the Arceus plush worked; it's still concurrent with the gen 4 cuties but was tied to a bonus because ohhh its Arceus it's so special. Maybe they try coordinating with Go for a promotional push or something.
Also the idea of waiting a "few months" for like hisui to follow galar or megas to follow kalos (to be clear I suspect they will be part of Kalos, and GMaxes with Galar and so forth) would...likely not ever be a thing with just how this stuff works, production timeline wise. Something like hisui cuties would probably still be their own dedicated year if they wanted to do them separately. which assuming they dont run into any other delays, megas are with Kalos, and do al ine a year would be...at least 2027? Jesus. You know maybe the lines do just stop before we get to that point lmao.
I just checked on Bulbapedia that each mochi gives 10 EVs in the respective stat, so they pretty much have the same effect as vitamins (protein, carbos, etc.). What is the point of adding six more items to clutter our bags? They could have just introduced a EV-resetting vitamin and then reward vitamins for the ogre mini-game. Other than flavor, I don't see the point of adding this new item that we will probably not see again.
Although I guess this could be their way to slowly phase out vitamins and keep mochis for the next generations. I can see this being the case since vitamins are originally named after additives/drugs (taurine, bromhexine, lysozyme, chitosan, and indometacin), one of which (indomectacin/carbos) is prescription-only. Mochis seem to be a more kid-friendly alternative.
Although I guess this could be their way to slowly phase out vitamins and keep mochis for the next generations. I can see this being the case since vitamins are originally named after additives/drugs (taurine, bromhexine, lysozyme, chitosan, and indometacin), one of which (indomectacin/carbos) is prescription-only. Mochis seem to be a more kid-friendly alternative.
It's purely flavor. You're in Kitakami playing a festival game and the primary reward is all the mochi they make beacuse they make a ton of rice. It's like how htey kept making all those full heal variants for no real reason other than "wouldn't it be cute"
I do think they should have given more than 10 (I had heard originalyl they only gave +1, but both serebii & bulbapedia seem to say otherwise, so thats nice at least) to help them stand out a little and go with the presumed idea of helping you make competitive ready pokemon faster, though.
once more asking them to add more bag spaces so "battle ready" items can just go in their own tab, though. The vitamins, feathers, mochis (I agree these probably don't come back beyond maybe the fresh-start mochi, but for the time being...), exp candies, mints, power items.