True. Didn't know the world for barbels.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
I personally think that the Magikarp to Dragonite evolution idea feels way, WAY too off compared to Gyarados.
Dragonair to Dragonite I could see from the former putting on weight and growing its limbs. It looks like it went from serpentine to just an amphibious reptile design. Scale color could be explained by Dragonite being more airborne and thus exposed to more light than the more aquatic Dragonair.
Magikarp would not only have to go from fully aquatic to something capable of flight, but nothing in its design matches up with Dragonite to justify it. Magikarp is also based on a chinese legend, so shouldn't the dragon like design be based more on an eastern style dragon, and still appear aquatic since it involves swimming up a Waterfall?
And maybe Gyarados is serpentine, but I think it's even more of a contrast from Dragonair than Dragonite. Dragonite, while goofy and less threatening, at least gives off an air of benevolence, and has a presence that leaves you in awe, if not for the same reason as Dragonair.
Gyarados is large, imposing, and vicious in design: everything about it says it will murder anything that annoys it, which doesn't carry the same dignified air as Dragonair does. Dragonite loses Dragonair's elegance, but Gyarados completely contrasts it.
And are you telling me a Pokemon like Dragonair doesn't deserve this for an evolution?
Dragonair to Dragonite I could see from the former putting on weight and growing its limbs. It looks like it went from serpentine to just an amphibious reptile design. Scale color could be explained by Dragonite being more airborne and thus exposed to more light than the more aquatic Dragonair.
Magikarp would not only have to go from fully aquatic to something capable of flight, but nothing in its design matches up with Dragonite to justify it. Magikarp is also based on a chinese legend, so shouldn't the dragon like design be based more on an eastern style dragon, and still appear aquatic since it involves swimming up a Waterfall?
And maybe Gyarados is serpentine, but I think it's even more of a contrast from Dragonair than Dragonite. Dragonite, while goofy and less threatening, at least gives off an air of benevolence, and has a presence that leaves you in awe, if not for the same reason as Dragonair.
Gyarados is large, imposing, and vicious in design: everything about it says it will murder anything that annoys it, which doesn't carry the same dignified air as Dragonair does. Dragonite loses Dragonair's elegance, but Gyarados completely contrasts it.
And are you telling me a Pokemon like Dragonair doesn't deserve this for an evolution?
Oh, it definitely deserves all that. xD
To clarify, I don't necessarily believe in the Dragonair > Gyarados theory myself, for reasons stated above. I just thought it'd provide an interesting point of discussion for the people claiming Dragonite doesn't work as the Dratini line's final evolution.
The problem is that dragonite has loads of elements from early dratini, if anything dragonair is somehow the odd one in the chain, not by much as he still looks as a developed dratini with orbs but dragonite spots several dratini traits in RBY.
I can definitely see Dratini's traits in Dragonite, mostly in the face. It takes a little looking, but you can tell that it is nearly the same. But that isn't really the point I think. Dratini has matured into a weather controlling serpent, its face had become more snakelike, orbs have appeared to help with its powers, and the fins used maybe for aquatic living have become wings to allow Dragonair the ability the fly in the anime. Then it comes to Dragonite. To me, Dragonite is the odd one. As said before, I feel like traits from previous evolutions have disappeared except for some from Dratini. It is now bipedal, has ganged a lot of bulk, and the wings have moved to allow it better control of flight. I would go on, but I think the rest goes in the Theories and Mysteries thread. Dragonite is still a nice Pokemon, I like it, it is growing on me. Maybe I'm just bitter towards it because I was so attached to my Dragonair. Also, the model it has is horrible I think.
It looks fine from the front, but from the back...
ugh. This is why I am so put off my it. Why is Dragonite leaning so far forward? Why can't it be on the ground, like it is in Silver, DPP, and BW?
I would actually love a Dragon/Water split evolution for Dragonair, but that's getting into speculation / wishlisting and if people want to fan design that or whatever they should PM.
Unpopular opinion: Lucario is stupid and really overhyped. I hate the attention it gets. Zororark is cool, though.
Unpopular opinion: Lucario is stupid and really overhyped. I hate the attention it gets. Zororark is cool, though.
I liked Lucario in his debut, but my problem is that he's being over-exposed at this point.
He was a big deal in Gen 4, but then for some reason they chose to keep pushing him in Gen 6 as part of the Mega Evolution sub plot, not to mention keeping him around in Smash Bros despite it being 2 gens later. He's being kept relevant by inclusion, rather included by remaining relevant naturally.
I personally feel Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are the worst main series Pokemon games. This is primarily due to technical issues within the game, such as ridiculously slow battles and a mediocre music engine that ruins several tracks in the game. I also hated the sprites used in this game and the limited number of Pokemon in the pokedex (IIRC there were literally only 2 fully evolved fire-type pokemon you could catch pre National dex, which is laughable). I'm very glad that Platinum was able to mitigate a majority of these issues.
I find most, if not all, Gen 5 Pokemon designs to be really great. I always loved the design of Pokemon such as Chandelure, Vanilluxe, KlingKlang, and Amoongus and I personally don't think these Pokemon deserve any of the hate they receive.
I hated the change to weather inducing abilities in Gen 6. It removed a large amount of diversity that many gen 5 playstyles had.
I find most, if not all, Gen 5 Pokemon designs to be really great. I always loved the design of Pokemon such as Chandelure, Vanilluxe, KlingKlang, and Amoongus and I personally don't think these Pokemon deserve any of the hate they receive.
I hated the change to weather inducing abilities in Gen 6. It removed a large amount of diversity that many gen 5 playstyles had.
I fully agree with this; but I'd also like to add that one of the big major draws of Gen 4 was it's evolutions to pre-existing Pokémon such as Togekiss, Mamoswine and Gliscor. But in DP, not only are these not in the in-game dex, but some of them are just absolutely asinine to obtain in the aftergame. The more notorious examples include when you needed to use the dual slot option - you needed this to get the Magby and Elekid families as well as their Gen 4 evolution items, and even then the items were (iirc) only on them as a chance rather than 100%. And then even WORSE is that you have Tangrowth, whose pre-evolution Tangela is unobtainable in DP by any means even with Dual Slot - it has to be transferred through the Pal Park. When a new Pokémon games' big draw is an evolution of previous Pokémon, the fact you can't even get it within those games without the help of previous games and the fact that the games never even so much as give you a sign they exist never mind how to get them is just downright stupid. Thankfully this is another thing Platinum fixed up, with all the new evos being in the dex.
^Honestly thought this would go better in the "Little things that annoy you" thread lol.
And I agree with you, DP has some of the worse gameplay ever (with the limited Pokemon selection (read: TWO Fire-type family in the dex, really, Troll Freak?), slow game engines, reliance on dual slot to obtain certain Pokemon, HM overload, etc. ) . The only thing that saved it from bombing are the legendaries (in which they have too many imo) and the Physical/ Special split.
Wow, I have no posted here in quite a bit. I have 4 pages worth of stuff to respond to. Hmm, guess I'll go one page at a time:
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I'd imagine the replay value would depend how you play. Though the selection is limited there's still 50 in the original and even more in XD (and in XD they have the PokeSpots which give you a few more options). Do you go through with a "core" team or do you keep switching our Pokemon to purify as many as you can at a single time. Do do you purify the Shadow Pokemon when they're ready or do you keep them as Shadow Pokemon so that you have access to their Shadow Moves? If you're going through with a core team there's plenty of combinations you can do, sure some may say one is effective over another but why not give some Pokemon you wouldn't a try, I mean you're limited anyway so when would there be a better opportunity?
GameFreak really needs to give us some additional Save slots. I'm not asking for like a dozen, just two or three so I can at least play through the game again. It's not like it'll make getting certain Pokemon hard, you pretty much got rid of that with the GTS and Poke Bank.
Honestly the difficulty came from catching the Shadow Pokemon; it's not hard to knock out their (Dakim would knock out Entei for you if you let him since his Pokemon love using Earthquake).
Well they're going to need a new battle gimmick eventually so maybe then they'll have a proper free-for-all. Though I would imagine it would require a bit or work to plan out, they might have to write another rule set for certain moves.
Yeah, honestly no matter how much you limit it Pokemon will always have luck/"hax" problems. If is not Quick Claw/King's Rock its someone landing a Critical Hit, an Ability with a chance of activating kicking in, a move with lower accuracy missing, the damage RNG just so happened to roll in a way that a Pokemon survived an attack that should otherwise have knocked it out, etc.. I like to see if that whenever there's a chance of something happening you're deciding whether the chance is worth taking or to do something else. I could use Quick Claw to possibly have my slow Pokemon attack first or I can give it an Assault Vest/Life Orb to defend better/hit harder. I could use Fire Blast for heavier damage but a chance of missing or use the much more reliable Flamethrower though it has less power. Honestly I don't think people should get upset if they lose a battle due to this as a lot depend on luck and the digital dice could have had easily rolled in your favor. I suppose its maybe GF's way of making sure that there's no one team that is undefeatable or maybe even replicating as best as they can that sometimes in life luck is or isn't on your side. *shrugs*
Well that's one page down, 3 more to go. Tomorrow.
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I'd imagine the replay value would depend how you play. Though the selection is limited there's still 50 in the original and even more in XD (and in XD they have the PokeSpots which give you a few more options). Do you go through with a "core" team or do you keep switching our Pokemon to purify as many as you can at a single time. Do do you purify the Shadow Pokemon when they're ready or do you keep them as Shadow Pokemon so that you have access to their Shadow Moves? If you're going through with a core team there's plenty of combinations you can do, sure some may say one is effective over another but why not give some Pokemon you wouldn't a try, I mean you're limited anyway so when would there be a better opportunity?
GameFreak really needs to give us some additional Save slots. I'm not asking for like a dozen, just two or three so I can at least play through the game again. It's not like it'll make getting certain Pokemon hard, you pretty much got rid of that with the GTS and Poke Bank.
Honestly the difficulty came from catching the Shadow Pokemon; it's not hard to knock out their (Dakim would knock out Entei for you if you let him since his Pokemon love using Earthquake).
Well they're going to need a new battle gimmick eventually so maybe then they'll have a proper free-for-all. Though I would imagine it would require a bit or work to plan out, they might have to write another rule set for certain moves.
Yeah, honestly no matter how much you limit it Pokemon will always have luck/"hax" problems. If is not Quick Claw/King's Rock its someone landing a Critical Hit, an Ability with a chance of activating kicking in, a move with lower accuracy missing, the damage RNG just so happened to roll in a way that a Pokemon survived an attack that should otherwise have knocked it out, etc.. I like to see if that whenever there's a chance of something happening you're deciding whether the chance is worth taking or to do something else. I could use Quick Claw to possibly have my slow Pokemon attack first or I can give it an Assault Vest/Life Orb to defend better/hit harder. I could use Fire Blast for heavier damage but a chance of missing or use the much more reliable Flamethrower though it has less power. Honestly I don't think people should get upset if they lose a battle due to this as a lot depend on luck and the digital dice could have had easily rolled in your favor. I suppose its maybe GF's way of making sure that there's no one team that is undefeatable or maybe even replicating as best as they can that sometimes in life luck is or isn't on your side. *shrugs*
Well that's one page down, 3 more to go. Tomorrow.
Well, Pokemon is a turn-based RPG (and hence ultimately a descendant of Dungeons & Dragons, which - guess what - involves dice as a core mechanic), of course it has luck. If you want to avoid luck, play chess instead.
You could easily modify Pokemon to remove hax, and indeed Smogon has done this and you can find it in the Other Metagames forum. And you know what? The game that results isn't sufficiently different to normal Pokemon to be interesting.
Moreover, hax actually serves a very important function to competitive Pokemon (heresy!), not on a mechanical level, but in terms of the community. When you start out battling competitively, you are a noob and you will get beaten a lot. This can be pretty dispiriting. Luck can just give those first couple of wins that you need in order not to just go off competitive battling forever.
You could easily modify Pokemon to remove hax, and indeed Smogon has done this and you can find it in the Other Metagames forum. And you know what? The game that results isn't sufficiently different to normal Pokemon to be interesting.
Moreover, hax actually serves a very important function to competitive Pokemon (heresy!), not on a mechanical level, but in terms of the community. When you start out battling competitively, you are a noob and you will get beaten a lot. This can be pretty dispiriting. Luck can just give those first couple of wins that you need in order not to just go off competitive battling forever.
Is this really an unpopular opinion? From what I can tell it's actually pretty common to think that Diamond and Pearl are among the worst games in the main series because of everything you mentioned.
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Well I've seen a large number of people say Diamond and pearl are the best games in the series as well as putting gen 4 as the best or second best generation of Pokemon, so I assumed these games were widely praised despite their large number of issues.
I loved Gen IV the most aside from the slowness in saving.
I actually bothered to go look up "Worst Pokemon Games" a while ago and from what I've found looking up opinions, the most popularly voted core series game for "Worst Core Series Pokemon Game" is in fact Diamond and Pearl. Platinum is less disliked, and I do believe HeartGold and SoulSilver were another part of the reason Gen 4 was well liked (and HGSS are objectively the best games, even better than ORAS imo).
Even with Diamond and Pearl being ranked lowly among many people today, I do feel Gen 4 was a really good generation overall though. It introduced a lot of cool things to the table like wireless multiplayer (and Wi-Fi battles, though since Nintendo killed DS Wi-Fi connectivity you can't do that anymore :( ), new evolutions making some otherwise shitty Pokemon so much cooler to use, and the physical / special split. It changed Pokemon for the better imo. While Gen 4 isn't the best generation, I feel it introduced a lot, and more importantly, I feel Gen 4 really opened the leeway for what I call "modern day Pokemon", which includes DPP/HGSS, BW/BW2, and XY/ORAS/(idk what's next).
Platinum was a strong game and Gen 4 is also good because even though D/P may be the worst games, HGSS on the other hand are the absolute best.
While Gen 4 did have a lot of technical difficulties I feel it was an important stepping stone in the history of Pokemon games, and marked a transition in how one plays Pokemon. This was also the first truly competitive gen afaik so yeah. As I see it, Gens 1-3 are Pokemon as it was. Gens 4-6 are Pokemon as it is.
I also have a bit of a soft spot for Gen 4 in general because it was alive and well during the days when I was a kid and had so much less to worry about. The DS Lite was also awesome. Gen 4 also holds a lot of my personal favorites such as Infernape and Garchomp, along many more. I also have a liking towards a lot of the Gen 4 legendaries, namely Dialga.
Even with Diamond and Pearl being ranked lowly among many people today, I do feel Gen 4 was a really good generation overall though. It introduced a lot of cool things to the table like wireless multiplayer (and Wi-Fi battles, though since Nintendo killed DS Wi-Fi connectivity you can't do that anymore :( ), new evolutions making some otherwise shitty Pokemon so much cooler to use, and the physical / special split. It changed Pokemon for the better imo. While Gen 4 isn't the best generation, I feel it introduced a lot, and more importantly, I feel Gen 4 really opened the leeway for what I call "modern day Pokemon", which includes DPP/HGSS, BW/BW2, and XY/ORAS/(idk what's next).
Platinum was a strong game and Gen 4 is also good because even though D/P may be the worst games, HGSS on the other hand are the absolute best.
While Gen 4 did have a lot of technical difficulties I feel it was an important stepping stone in the history of Pokemon games, and marked a transition in how one plays Pokemon. This was also the first truly competitive gen afaik so yeah. As I see it, Gens 1-3 are Pokemon as it was. Gens 4-6 are Pokemon as it is.
I also have a bit of a soft spot for Gen 4 in general because it was alive and well during the days when I was a kid and had so much less to worry about. The DS Lite was also awesome. Gen 4 also holds a lot of my personal favorites such as Infernape and Garchomp, along many more. I also have a liking towards a lot of the Gen 4 legendaries, namely Dialga.
Oh, HG/SS definitely helped Gen IV out a lot. I wouldn't have fond memories of Gen IV without them.
SoulSilver in my opinion is the standard of how remakes should be judged, content and soundtrack wise. Speaking of which, I find myself wanting to listen to some of the HG/SS soundtrack again.
SoulSilver in my opinion is the standard of how remakes should be judged, content and soundtrack wise. Speaking of which, I find myself wanting to listen to some of the HG/SS soundtrack again.
I also really liked HG/SS, and played the game many times over with different starters, or if I had another DS on me, all three of them. However, to this day, I still cannot fathom how I ever thought a team of just Typhlosion, Victreebel and Hustle Togekiss was a good idea. Sadly, I haven't touched the game in years, and am very reluctant to ever re-play it again.
This is what happens when you find a Shiny in the Safari Zone.
This is what happens when you find a Shiny in the Safari Zone.
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Pfft, I swear at some point in the Battle Facilities that the game intentionally starts out with a Pokemon that has an advantage over your first Pokemon.
I think they should go back to some items and change them a bit, or maybe add something to them. Some items aren't that useful and some are just copies of another, the Item Clause honestly doesn't seem to limit you much but rather asks you to just settle for a lesser version of the an item you already gave to another Pokemon. Not saying you can't get creative, that was the point of the Item Clause, but the more new held items they add either they are a copy of another item or get more situational.
Abilities who's only use are in Doubles bother me. An Ability is described to us as an passive skill the Pokemon has to make itself better in some way, mainly in defending itself. So when you get an Ability that only works on a Pokemon's partner, the question how this came to be, like why would the Pokemon's own body do that (a Move is something a Pokemon does on its own intent, so the Pokemon decided it wanted to help its partner. An Ability seems like something the Pokemon's body developed thus it should mainly help it and if it just so happens to benefit a partner than bonus). I can see where they can make slight changes where the Abilities could be beneficial to the user. Like for Florges changing it to be part Grass-type means it would be able to use Flower Veil, I never understood why Healer never affected the user in addition to its allies, and if a Pokemon has Plus or Minus they should at least be able to learn Magnetic Flux and have it also affect the user (and maybe also have it affect other "magnet" moves/Abilities, like maybe a Pokemon with Plus and Minus can escape a Pokemon with Magnet Pull which would help the Klink family). There's no reason an Ability shouldn't have a use in Singles even if its situational. That also goes to moves which only have a use outside of battle like Run Away (though with a name like that you'd think it would be able to switch out of trapping Moves/Abilities).
I've never heard someone called a "genwunner" unless the person pretty much refuses to believe anything after Gen I (or II) is good. Okay, maybe a troll would call a Pokemon fan a genwunner but they're a troll so they're just trying to annoy people, they don't really care one way or another. That, everyone is entitled to their opinion, if you think Gen I (and/or II) is the best and no games beyond aren't then fine though I would think you're being a bit stubborn and close minded.
I like the idea of Mega Pokemon though I do think its lacking a bit of focus, especially with the Primals and Mega "I don't need no Mega Stone" Rayquaza. It feels like with Mega Evolutions they're at the phase where they're throwing things at a wall to see what sticks instead of having a laid out plan and following it. Mega Evolution, in my opinion, is a way to have any Pokemon be able to compete with the likes of those considered OU or Ubers. They reached their pinnacle of power and pretty much only a Legendary or another Mega Pokemon could match them. Now obviously that's not always the case and other parts of the Mega Evolution mechanic does hinder this a bit, but I'm talking about conceptually and not in practice. If anything, a Mega Pokemon would let those who have a favorite Pokemon that's not looked upon being competitive have a chance of being competitive. Yes, you might not like its Mega Evolution, but its still your favorite Pokemon underneath it, its base form is the one you can play with in Pokemon-Amie. Mega Evolution is just a temporary power-up, think of it as Pokemon's version of Dragon Ball Z's Super Saiyan.
As for Rayquaza vs. Mega Rayquaza, I like them both. Normal Rayquaza is a beast and I do like its slicker design better (its Ability is useful too, though I wished it was able to stop the Primals and Mega Rayquaza's Abilities. Only Rayqauza has Air Lock, an other Pokemon gets Cloud Nine which you can have be useless against them), however Mega Rayquaza is a monster and you can't beat those stats or its Ability that pretty much makes it a Flying-type trainer's dream come true (though I don't like its able to Hold an item, that kind of defeats the purpose of a Mega Pokemon in my opinion). I think there's room for both, specifically Rayquaza in Ubers and Mega Rayquaza inF*** It, Anything Goes.
Looking at it, what might be holding the Eeveelutions back is their stat layout. All Eeveelutions have a stat layout of 130-110-95-65-65-60. At first you think that with careful planning that they could make that work depending on the Eevee's type, but that's where the problem's start. First they try to not have an Eeveelution share the same layout, infact they often try to have each one have a vastly different layout. This has caused obvious problems which I could list but already this post is long. In addition one of these numbers go into HP, a stat which you really can't affect in battle aside from healing it. Once you're done training a Pokemon's HP what you see is what you get, you can't like boost its HP (even Mega Evolutions don't change the HP stat). So now if the Eeveelution gets 130 or 110 in its HP stat, well, I hope it gets a type and stat layout that makes it a good wall. If there's one Pokemon family that I think could use a total stat reconstruction, it would be the Eevee family. Get rid of the stat layout and give the stats you think would be right for it. Like you can keep Flareon a physical attacker, but it needs Speed and being its a Fire-type who cares about defense, just have it do as much damage as it can. And yes, Flareon is my favorite Eeveelution... at least it now has Flare Blitz...
At least every fully evolved Pokemon should be able to learn Earthquake. If not from weight I always saw a lightweight Pokemon who use Earthquake as striking the ground in such a way it caused shockwaves to move the tectonic plates causing them to shake a bit (like imagine someone karate chopping a stack of bricks in half).
Pfft, I swear at some point in the Battle Facilities that the game intentionally starts out with a Pokemon that has an advantage over your first Pokemon.
I think they should go back to some items and change them a bit, or maybe add something to them. Some items aren't that useful and some are just copies of another, the Item Clause honestly doesn't seem to limit you much but rather asks you to just settle for a lesser version of the an item you already gave to another Pokemon. Not saying you can't get creative, that was the point of the Item Clause, but the more new held items they add either they are a copy of another item or get more situational.
Abilities who's only use are in Doubles bother me. An Ability is described to us as an passive skill the Pokemon has to make itself better in some way, mainly in defending itself. So when you get an Ability that only works on a Pokemon's partner, the question how this came to be, like why would the Pokemon's own body do that (a Move is something a Pokemon does on its own intent, so the Pokemon decided it wanted to help its partner. An Ability seems like something the Pokemon's body developed thus it should mainly help it and if it just so happens to benefit a partner than bonus). I can see where they can make slight changes where the Abilities could be beneficial to the user. Like for Florges changing it to be part Grass-type means it would be able to use Flower Veil, I never understood why Healer never affected the user in addition to its allies, and if a Pokemon has Plus or Minus they should at least be able to learn Magnetic Flux and have it also affect the user (and maybe also have it affect other "magnet" moves/Abilities, like maybe a Pokemon with Plus and Minus can escape a Pokemon with Magnet Pull which would help the Klink family). There's no reason an Ability shouldn't have a use in Singles even if its situational. That also goes to moves which only have a use outside of battle like Run Away (though with a name like that you'd think it would be able to switch out of trapping Moves/Abilities).
I've never heard someone called a "genwunner" unless the person pretty much refuses to believe anything after Gen I (or II) is good. Okay, maybe a troll would call a Pokemon fan a genwunner but they're a troll so they're just trying to annoy people, they don't really care one way or another. That, everyone is entitled to their opinion, if you think Gen I (and/or II) is the best and no games beyond aren't then fine though I would think you're being a bit stubborn and close minded.
I like the idea of Mega Pokemon though I do think its lacking a bit of focus, especially with the Primals and Mega "I don't need no Mega Stone" Rayquaza. It feels like with Mega Evolutions they're at the phase where they're throwing things at a wall to see what sticks instead of having a laid out plan and following it. Mega Evolution, in my opinion, is a way to have any Pokemon be able to compete with the likes of those considered OU or Ubers. They reached their pinnacle of power and pretty much only a Legendary or another Mega Pokemon could match them. Now obviously that's not always the case and other parts of the Mega Evolution mechanic does hinder this a bit, but I'm talking about conceptually and not in practice. If anything, a Mega Pokemon would let those who have a favorite Pokemon that's not looked upon being competitive have a chance of being competitive. Yes, you might not like its Mega Evolution, but its still your favorite Pokemon underneath it, its base form is the one you can play with in Pokemon-Amie. Mega Evolution is just a temporary power-up, think of it as Pokemon's version of Dragon Ball Z's Super Saiyan.
As for Rayquaza vs. Mega Rayquaza, I like them both. Normal Rayquaza is a beast and I do like its slicker design better (its Ability is useful too, though I wished it was able to stop the Primals and Mega Rayquaza's Abilities. Only Rayqauza has Air Lock, an other Pokemon gets Cloud Nine which you can have be useless against them), however Mega Rayquaza is a monster and you can't beat those stats or its Ability that pretty much makes it a Flying-type trainer's dream come true (though I don't like its able to Hold an item, that kind of defeats the purpose of a Mega Pokemon in my opinion). I think there's room for both, specifically Rayquaza in Ubers and Mega Rayquaza in
Looking at it, what might be holding the Eeveelutions back is their stat layout. All Eeveelutions have a stat layout of 130-110-95-65-65-60. At first you think that with careful planning that they could make that work depending on the Eevee's type, but that's where the problem's start. First they try to not have an Eeveelution share the same layout, infact they often try to have each one have a vastly different layout. This has caused obvious problems which I could list but already this post is long. In addition one of these numbers go into HP, a stat which you really can't affect in battle aside from healing it. Once you're done training a Pokemon's HP what you see is what you get, you can't like boost its HP (even Mega Evolutions don't change the HP stat). So now if the Eeveelution gets 130 or 110 in its HP stat, well, I hope it gets a type and stat layout that makes it a good wall. If there's one Pokemon family that I think could use a total stat reconstruction, it would be the Eevee family. Get rid of the stat layout and give the stats you think would be right for it. Like you can keep Flareon a physical attacker, but it needs Speed and being its a Fire-type who cares about defense, just have it do as much damage as it can. And yes, Flareon is my favorite Eeveelution... at least it now has Flare Blitz...
At least every fully evolved Pokemon should be able to learn Earthquake. If not from weight I always saw a lightweight Pokemon who use Earthquake as striking the ground in such a way it caused shockwaves to move the tectonic plates causing them to shake a bit (like imagine someone karate chopping a stack of bricks in half).
I think abilities like Run Away could be explained as a non-battle survival mechanism: Poochyena flees from fights until it grows into Mightyena and is able to defend itself. Lanturn's illuminate is similar to the Angler's use of a light to lure prey towards it.
The thing that I just think annoys me is when a Pokemon's ability blatantly is of no use to its species at all. Florges has outright no use for its abilities since Flower Veil is for grass types, or Plusle and Minun outright requiring the other's presence until Gen 5 for their ability to mean anything. I could maybe swallow Audino's for traveling in packs, or Chansey's since even in a natural environment it seems to play the medic, but no creature would evolve to have an attribute that in no way benefits it under natural circumstances.
The thing that I just think annoys me is when a Pokemon's ability blatantly is of no use to its species at all. Florges has outright no use for its abilities since Flower Veil is for grass types, or Plusle and Minun outright requiring the other's presence until Gen 5 for their ability to mean anything. I could maybe swallow Audino's for traveling in packs, or Chansey's since even in a natural environment it seems to play the medic, but no creature would evolve to have an attribute that in no way benefits it under natural circumstances.