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Pokémon Community Thread 3: "Soon, All of Hoenn Will Be Under Its Withering Glare…"

R

Refyref

Member
Cuteness Overload said:
It's extremely likely to be that one manga when it comes to Pokémon-GAF. Best not to mention it no matter how much you love it.
Click to expand...

Err. No-one, NO-ONE, likes ReBurst. Trash is trash, no matter what.
Now, whether the rest of the manga series are good or not, that's up to the taste of the reader.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Pokemon Adventures is amazing. ReBurst is awful, though, yeah.
 
Boss Doggie

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Meh, I still think that fangame is terrible for pandering too much.

Anyone got the episode preview showing Gogoat, Helioptile, and Alexa?
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Doesn't use post-gen-2 stuff, thereby "pandering" to the older fans, I'm assuming.
 
E

Exterminieren

Banned
Refyref said:
You can't expect to put this line:

In the main sentence you use to describe your game and not sound at least a little pretentious.
Click to expand...
That's amazing.

What unknown story is even in that gap? Unless it's the story of the mysterious disappearance of the Safari Zone, I'm stumped.
 
U

udivision

Member
Considering how much work they have to do, I don't fault them for taking a smaller scope. In fact, I wouldn't mind even if it was just the 1st gen. Just think about it, 649 models and animations? New gens could always be added later if at all.
 
S

ScraftyDevil

Banned
Pretty sure BD just hates older Pokémon stuff on principle at this point.

I still think Generations looks neat, even if the "story" thing is hilarious. It should be neat to see my third-main man Espeon in the digital flesh at least!
 
Boss Doggie

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Emitan said:
The disdain some people hold for fan projects is amazing.
Click to expand...

Even without the personal disagreements, it looks like it plays terribly.

At least the minecraft looking one wasn't trying to be pretentious.

qq more said:
Did the Gen 1/2 Pokemon and the anime murdered your pets? Sorry to hear that! :(
Click to expand...

I make it a point that good Pokemon references/puns should be based on the games and not on Ash or the anime. Yes for Red and Blue/Green, no to Ash and Gary. /elitism

ScraftyDevil said:
Pretty sure BD just hates older Pokémon stuff on principle at this point.
Click to expand...
Exterminieren said:
Not sure how this is any better than the "genwunners" he rails against, but OK.
Click to expand...

Hey, I didn't say it sucks, I said I don't like it. :p

With that said, I did say it sucks even without my personal preferences because of its awkward look.

Also you guys didn't post the preview for next ep :/
 
S

ScraftyDevil

Banned
Exterminieren said:
Not sure how this is any better than the "genwunners" he rails against, but OK.
Click to expand...

I never said it wasn't. I mean, I'm not a huge fan of the old games or anything, but I don't think they're inherently worse than the newest ones. Every generation does things really well and really badly, and to put any Gen or group of Gens on a pedestal is to ignore this fact. Both sides exist, and are both at fault. I guess hating things on principle just really irks me (see: any given Pacific Rim thread).
 
D

Dr.Palutena

Member
Exterminieren said:
That's amazing.

What unknown story is even in that gap? Unless it's the story of the mysterious disappearance of the Safari Zone, I'm stumped.
Click to expand...

Shhh I've been waiting for a non canonical answer to why anyone would suggest a poison type gym leader as the new elite four for all of 2 minutes now .
 
Z

Zeroth

Member
ScraftyDevil said:
Yeah, Flint's team at least makes some degree of sense. Steelix is formed under intense heat and Drifblim is powered by fire.

The only one that doesn't make sense is Lopunny unless... Oh god.
Click to expand...

image.php
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Dr.Palutena said:
That just reminds me how poorly planned the typings for important trainers were for gen 1 and 2.
Click to expand...

That's not true. Gen 1 has the best-thought out gym typings of the entire series. They're designed to push the player forward. Have you ever noticed that prior to arriving in Cerulean, you can't catch a single Pokemon that is super-effective on Water except the rather difficult to find Pikachu, but just after Cerulean you can catch Oddish and Bellsprout? Or that you can't catch a single Pokemon that naturally learns a Ground-type move (unless you use the Dig TM) before Surge, and yet Diglett's Tunnel is right nearby? Or that there are no non-starter Fire types before Erika, unless you took the time to explore the entirely optional grass on Route 7 or the grass hidden behind the cut tree on Route 8?

Every single Gym Leader in RBY is of a typing that you currently are extremely unlikely to have an answer to at that stage in the game; they act to force the player to explore in an extremely subtle and well-designed manner, as you don't have the tools you need - but they're right nearby if you look just a little further.

GSC is just the left-over types from RBY and in that respect has a very weak typing line-up, it's not coherent. By RSE, exploration-motive Gym leaders aren't possible due to how most Pokemon can now learn a wider variety of moves and thus blocks on the possibly of what is SE are no longer, so RSE introduces what will become the series staple of having the type of a gym leader tied to the nearby environment/area, which gives the game aesthetic cohesion if not necessarily gameplay cohesion. RSE does keep the Rock-type gym leader in first, though, and this is important because the vast majority of moves Pokemon learn at very low levels are Normal type moves, and thus a Rock-gym teaches the importance of type variety and the type-chart. DPPt keeps this, but has problems because the DPPt Pokedex has very poor type variety and a lot of the gym-leaders suffer as a result.

Black and White drops this, and goes a different route by teaching the player not to rely on the starter, with whole "gym leader who is effective against your starter's type" thing. However, this role in earlier games was occupied by your rival - you notice you normally had a match with your rival who would have their starter with their typed move by this point? As such, it's a little redundant. BW2 probably has the worst gym type line-up, it's just... it doesn't seem to serve any gameplay purpose nor really an aesthetic purpose. I guess you like it if you're a Cheren fan?

But yeah, Pokemon Yellow has the best "original run" (so excluding rematches, etc.) of gym leaders / E4 of the series. I'd say the series goes like this:

Y > RB > E = RS > DP > Pt > BW > GSC > BW2.
 
A

ArchedThunder

Banned
Crab said:
That's not true. Gen 1 has the best-thought out gym typings of the entire series. They're designed to push the player forward. Have you ever noticed that prior to arriving in Cerulean, you can't catch a single Pokemon that is super-effective on Water except the rather difficult to find Pikachu, but just after Cerulean you can catch Oddish and Bellsprout? Or that you can't catch a single Pokemon that naturally learns a Ground-type move (unless you use the Dig TM) before Surge, and yet Diglett's Tunnel is right nearby? Or that there are no non-starter Fire types before Erika, unless you took the time to explore the entirely optional grass on Route 7 or the grass hidden behind the cut tree on Route 8?

Every single Gym Leader in RBY is of a typing that you currently are extremely unlikely to have an answer to at that stage in the game; they act to force the player to explore in an extremely subtle and well-designed manner, as you don't have the tools you need - but they're right nearby if you look just a little further.

GSC is just the left-over types from RBY and in that respect has a very weak typing line-up, it's not coherent. By RSE, exploration-motive Gym leaders aren't possible due to how most Pokemon can now learn a wider variety of moves and thus blocks on the possibly of what is SE are no longer, so RSE introduces what will become the series staple of having the type of a gym leader tied to the nearby environment/area, which gives the game aesthetic cohesion if not necessarily gameplay cohesion. RSE does keep the Rock-type gym leader in first, though, and this is important because the vast majority of moves Pokemon learn at very low levels are Normal type moves, and thus a Rock-gym teaches the importance of type variety and the type-chart. DPPt keeps this, but has problems because the DPPt Pokedex has very poor type variety and a lot of the gym-leaders suffer as a result.

Black and White drops this, and goes a different route by teaching the player not to rely on the starter, with whole "gym leader who is effective against your starter's type" thing. However, this role in earlier games was occupied by your rival - you notice you normally had a match with your rival who would have their starter with their typed move by this point? As such, it's a little redundant. BW2 probably has the worst gym type line-up, it's just... it doesn't seem to serve any gameplay purpose nor really an aesthetic purpose. I guess you like it if you're a Cheren fan?

But yeah, Pokemon Yellow has the best "original run" (so excluding rematches, etc.) of gym leaders / E4 of the series. I'd say the series goes like this:

Y > RB > E = RS > DP > Pt > BW > GSC > BW2.
Click to expand...
And yet many of the gyms and the Elite Four don't have a full team of the type they are supposed to represent.
Like seriously, why are there so many Psychic types in the Poison gym.
 
Z

Zeroth

Member
Crab said:
That's not true. Gen 1 has the best-thought out gym typings of the entire series. They're designed to push the player forward. Have you ever noticed that prior to arriving in Cerulean, you can't catch a single Pokemon that is super-effective on Water except the rather difficult to find Pikachu, but just after Cerulean you can catch Oddish and Bellsprout? Or that you can't catch a single Pokemon that naturally learns a Ground-type move (unless you use the Dig TM) before Surge, and yet Diglett's Tunnel is right nearby? Or that there are no non-starter Fire types before Erika, unless you took the time to explore the entirely optional grass on Route 7 or the grass hidden behind the cut tree on Route 8?

Every single Gym Leader in RBY is of a typing that you currently are extremely unlikely to have an answer to at that stage in the game; they act to force the player to explore in an extremely subtle and well-designed manner, as you don't have the tools you need - but they're right nearby if you look just a little further.

GSC is just the left-over types from RBY and in that respect has a very weak typing line-up, it's not coherent. By RSE, exploration-motive Gym leaders aren't possible due to how most Pokemon can now learn a wider variety of moves and thus blocks on the possibly of what is SE are no longer, so RSE introduces what will become the series staple of having the type of a gym leader tied to the nearby environment/area, which gives the game aesthetic cohesion if not necessarily gameplay cohesion. RSE does keep the Rock-type gym leader in first, though, and this is important because the vast majority of moves Pokemon learn at very low levels are Normal type moves, and thus a Rock-gym teaches the importance of type variety and the type-chart. DPPt keeps this, but has problems because the DPPt Pokedex has very poor type variety and a lot of the gym-leaders suffer as a result.

Black and White drops this, and goes a different route by teaching the player not to rely on the starter, with whole "gym leader who is effective against your starter's type" thing. However, this role in earlier games was occupied by your rival - you notice you normally had a match with your rival who would have their starter with their typed move by this point? As such, it's a little redundant. BW2 probably has the worst gym type line-up, it's just... it doesn't seem to serve any gameplay purpose nor really an aesthetic purpose. I guess you like it if you're a Cheren fan?

But yeah, Pokemon Yellow has the best "original run" (so excluding rematches, etc.) of gym leaders / E4 of the series. I'd say the series goes like this:

Y > RB > E = RS > DP > Pt > BW > GSC > BW2.
Click to expand...

I agree with your assessment, but to be honest, I think her original point was that there were pretty weak or poorly represented types that were used for important trainers/elite four, like Psychic for Sabrina (when she only had 3 psychic pokemon in her team, 2 being from the same pokemon line) and Agatha (who had a team of 5 pokemon, with 2 being poison and the others being 2 Gengars and 1 Haunter, and also share a poison typing, which made her basically a poison-type trainer). I guess the problem was more than GF didn't implement many pokemons of certain types, so naturally some gym leaders had to use some multitype setups.
 
E

Exterminieren

Banned
It could very easily be argued that Black and White pull much the same trick with the gym leaders, though. The Striaton trio are obvious. Lenora and her normal types provide an incentive to explore the outer limits of Pinwheel Forest for a Throh, Sawk or Timburr to provide fighting-type coverage, which you wouldn't have otherwise had unless you plumped for Tepig as a starter. Burgh and his bug types slot in nicely before the desert and its plentiful supply of Darumaka, as well as coming at the point of the game where you can get Victini if you fancy giving it an easy run-out.
Elesa has a joint purpose; she comes after the desert, giving you an opportunity to utilize ground types, but she also uses flying types as an attempt to subvert the player's expectations and to encourage a variety of different type distributions and advantages with available rock Pokémon such as Dwebble. Clay leaves an opportunity to use the grass Pokémon you'll find on Route 5 and in Lostlorn Forest, Skyla lets you use the Electric and Rock Pokémon in Chargestone Cave such as Joltik, Tynamo and Boldore, Brycen lets you use a variety of different local Pokemon, such as Klink, Ferrothorn, or Gurdurr, and Drayden/Iris both serve as a preparation for fighting dragons in time for the events at the end of the game, and as an opportunity to use the Cubchoo you can find in Twist Mountain.

On top of the Gym Leaders, you have N to promote a shifting, malleable team. His ever-rotating roster ensures a constant flow and rotation for your team that Green, as an example, never did.

This also (at least initially) works with BW2, with Cheren encouraging you to hunt out a Riolu at Floccesy Ranch, and Roxie pushing you towards getting a Magnemite for the poison immunity.

Also, the Unova Dex is far and away more balanced in typing than the Kanto Dex ever was, in so far as it actually has enough Pokémon in any given type for a leader to have a cogent and varied roster.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Exterminieren said:
It could very easily be argued that Black and White pull much the same trick with the gym leaders, though. The Striaton trio are obvious. Lenora and her normal types provide an incentive to explore the outer limits of Pinwheel Forest for a Throh, Sawk or Timburr to provide fighting-type coverage, which you wouldn't have otherwise had unless you plumped for Tepig as a starter. Burgh and his bug types slot in nicely before the desert and its plentiful supply of Darumaka, as well as coming at the point of the game where you can get Victini if you fancy giving it an easy run-out.
Elesa has a joint purpose; she comes after the desert, giving you an opportunity to utilize ground types, but she also uses flying types as an attempt to subvert the player's expectations and to encourage a variety of different type distributions and advantages with available rock Pokémon such as Dwebble. Clay leaves an opportunity to use the grass Pokémon you'll find on Route 5 and in Lostlorn Forest, Skyla lets you use the Electric and Rock Pokémon in Chargestone Cave such as Joltik, Tynamo and Boldore, Brycen lets you use a variety of different local Pokemon, such as Klink, Ferrothorn, or Gurdurr, and Drayden/Iris both serve as a preparation for fighting dragons in time for the events at the end of the game, and as an opportunity to use the Cubchoo you can find in Twist Mountain.
Click to expand...

There are a few reasons why this doesn't work as well. The Striaton trio are teaching you a lesson you've already learnt. At this point in the game, you've fought Cheren, who uses the starter your starter is weak against, and Cheren's starter knows the relevant SE move (Ember/Vine Whip/Water Gun). If you were just using your starter up to this point, you'd have run into the Striaton trio already, which makes them just a repeat lesson - rather defunct.

Lenora isn't a strong enough leader to force you to vary your coverage. Look at Yellow's Misty. She had a level 22 Starmie. That's base 100 Sp.Atk, 115 Spd, probably a good 6 or 7 levels above what you'll be on reaching Cerulean the first time, firing off STAB'd Bubblebeam which has more base power than any move you'll learn for a fair while. Misty is tough as nails without an Oddish/Bellsprout/Pikachu (unless you picked Bulbasaur). Lenora is not. Herdier and Watchog don't have the same threat level as Starmie, Lenora's team is a lower level, etc. The only real advantage Lenora has is STAB'd Retaliate, but it's only coming off base 85 ATK. You can brute force your through Lenora, which is a lot more difficult for Misty.

By the time you hit Burgh, you've had ample opportunity to pick up a Roggenrola, which deals with him even more effectively than a Darmanitan.

Elesa is well-designed and placed, probably the best of the BW gym-leaders.

For all of the remaining leaders bar Iris/Drayden, you'll have been using Pokemon which can deal with them more than adequately long before you meet them. Drayden/Iris are well-placed again, though, I agree they act as a nice way to introduce Dragons before the end-game.

On top of the Gym Leaders, you have N to promote a shifting, malleable team. His ever-rotating roster ensures a constant flow and rotation for your team that Green, as an
example, never did.
Click to expand...

N was excellent, yes. Usually a much better challenge than any of the nearby gym leaders.

Also, the Unova Dex is far and away more balanced in typing than the Kanto Dex ever was, in so far as it actually has enough Pokémon in any given type for a leader to have a cogent and varied roster.
Click to expand...

To an extent. Unova Dex is shit for Fire types, though. Kanto is poor on Dragons and Ghost types, although back then Dragon was the "boss" type given no trainer prior to Lance ever uses a Dragon type and Dratini and Dragonair are extremely well hidden (Super Rod in Safari Zone with a difficult catch rate), so that's an excusable omission. Similarly, Ghost types were related to the Silph Scope.

The problem with actual Pokemon chosen, rather than typing, in the early gens, is not really the Kanto Dex's type variety, which is pretty good considering Kanto has a 150 dex and is somewhat on the smaller side, but more the fact gym leaders just seem to use 5 of the same Pokemon line for no apparent reason. That does bug me.
 
S

ScraftyDevil

Banned
I have to give the edge to Unova on this one. The Gyms are designed to be challenging without being frustrating, there are no massive level jumps like in Kanto, and most of them actually use moves which cover their weaknesses. The only real strike against them is their 3-Pokémon limit, which is proves a bit irksome in the cases of Elesa and Iris/Drayden, who really should be using members of the Tynamo and Deino lines respectively. And yeah, they all actually have Pokémon of their specialized types, which is nice coming off of RBY or DP.
 
M

MikeMyers

Member
Crab said:
. Kanto is poor on Dragons and Ghost types, although back then Dragon was the "boss" type given no trainer prior to Lance ever uses a Dragon type and Dratini and Dragonair are extremely well hidden (Super Rod in Safari Zone with a difficult catch rate), so that's an excusable omission. .
Click to expand...

Yeah, I always did like that. First time around, I didn't even know what Dragonite and Aerodactyl before (Blue has a Gyarados if you don't pick Charmander though).
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
ScraftyDevil said:
I have to give the edge to Unova on this one. The Gyms are designed to be challenging without being frustrating, there are no massive level jumps like in Kanto, and most of them actually use moves which cover their weaknesses. The only real strike against them is their 3-Pokémon limit, which is proves a bit irksome in the cases of Elesa and Iris/Drayden, who really should be using members of the Tynamo and Deino lines respectively. And yeah, they all actually have Pokémon of their specialized types, which is nice coming off of RBY or DP.
Click to expand...

But they're not challenging at all. I appreciated the level gaps between the Kanto gym leaders. That was actually one of the better things about DPPt too - Cynthia's team is normally a fair few levels above yours, so you really have to think on your feet.
 
D

Dr.Palutena

Member
I'm happy actual conversation came about for that, but I was talking more about there being only one line of dragon type or ghost type or psychic type Pokemon and then making gym leaders/elite four/ champions, with these types while those severe lack of type variety existed. Stuff like agatha and lance (particularly the existence of both lance and clair in gen 2). I concede that these "problems" dont just exist in the first 2 gens, but it is more poignant in retrospect to me, than say ,wallace/juan in emerald. Though I guess D/P/Pt before platinum really does take the cake in this regard, they should have really known better by then.

EIther way, this conversation is actually interesting.

I'd agree that the level gaps in Black/White are far too small along with their limits on pokemon used, I really hope Gen 6 has a hard mode without too much trouble (i.e just have it as an option from the get go)
 
M

MikeMyers

Member
Dr.Palutena said:
I'm happy actual conversation came about for that, but I was talking more about there being only one line of dragon type or ghost type or psychic type Pokemon and then making gym leaders/elite four/ champions, with these types while those severe lack of type variety existed. Stuff like agatha and lance (particularly the existence of both lance and clair in gen 2). I concede that these "problems" dont just exist in the first 2 gens, but it is more poignant in retrospect to me, than say ,wallace/juan in emerald. Though I guess D/P/Pt before platinum really does take the cake in this regard, they should have really known better by then.

EIther way, this conversation is actually interesting.
Click to expand...

There was one line of Psychic back in the day?

Mr. Mime
Drowsee/Hypno
Abra/Kadabra/Alakazam

Then you get multitudes such as Exeggutor, Starmie, & Slowbro.
 
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