Was watching a nature documentary on BBC 4 and they were talking about Remora and Manta ray and their symbiotic relationship and it just reminded me of Mantine and Remoraid.
Always the first thing I think of with regards to those two
But not everyone started with gen 1 so the gen 1 pandering only really effects the crowd that grew up with gen 1.
Now I am not saying that Game Freak can't do gen 1 pandering if anything they should have small references to Kanto to make tihe world feel convective.
But what I am not okay is how they went to the extreme in X and Y what with;
-First wild encounter being a Pidgey.
-Santalune Forest being Viridian Forest 2.0
-Kanto starter being given away after the first badge with their mega stone attached
-Snorlax blocking the road and the fetch quest of obtaining the Pokéflute
-First encounter of Team Flare in Glittering Cave where you get the Fossil, this is similar to Mt. Moon where you first meet Team Rocket and obtain the Fossil, heck you can rock smash for an old Amber and have two fossil Pokémon just like Gen 1.
-Free Lapras, including a 3D Lapras model
-The legendary birds being Kalo legendary trio for no real reason.
-Mewtwo chilling in the Pokémon Village because...reason.
-Team Flare goal in making money, similar to Team Rocket's goal.
-Sycamore battling you with the Kanto starters.
-A NPC mentions Blue.
Sometime less is more as that they don't overshadow other generations as I felt that X and Y suffered due to the gen 1 pandering, granted it had other flaws but the pandering didn't do it any favours.
Yeah, X/Y campaign really had too much. I'm too much of s bulba fam to not make him basically a 2nd starter, there were waaaaay too many references, etc.
This is also a reason I think a lot of B&W Pokemon will suffer. BW had a ton of Pokemon who were meant to be Unovas version of Kanto Pokemon, like the Jellicent vs Tentacruel line, Swoobat vs Zubst line, Patrat vs Rattata, Pidgey vs Pidove, Gigalith vs Golem, Conkdurr vs Machamp, Trubbish and Grimer, Drilbur and Duglett, Foonguss and Voltorb, Sawk&Throh vs Hitmonlee/chan, etc. But GF doesn't seem to want to make these gen v Pokemon replace the gen 1 Pokemon anywhere in the games. It would be dumb of caves had both roggenrola and geodude, or Zubat AND Swoobat, so GF seems to just go with the gen 1 variant almost every time. And so, gen v, whose designs I often actually liked but already felt suffered in having to establish the Zubat and Tentacools of its region that other gens didn't have to, has its designs like this pushed further away from people's thoughts
I think cool fan service should be like how in RSE, getting the full pokedex made Professor Birch give you one of the gen 2 starters. That was really neat, didn't get in the way of main game (although tbh gen 2 and 5 starters I could easily see getting boxed more than the others), but was still fan service to gen 2. Some of the gen 2 Pokemon in gen 3 are also so well integrated I thought they were gen 3 for the longest time: Slugma and Skarmory were gen 3 for me for the longest time.
On a completely different note, I sorta want to start something for the Pokemon community playing single player. You guys probably have heard of Nuzlockes by now, right? Well, I have another sort of "challenge", called Scrambles
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-scramble-challenge-mark-2.3455879/
User A: Hi, I am looking for a Challenge for Sapphire, no trading, make it brutally difficult.
User B: User A, take a Zubat, name it Flapper. It must hold a Cheri Berry to fight. If it loses it mid-battle, it must switch out. It can evolve into Golbat whenever, but to evolve again, it must solo 2 of Wattson's Pokemon on the first try. Fail this and it must solo the first Pokemon from each of the remaining Gym Leaders.
Basically, scrambles are challenges where you are assigned your 6 Pokemon by someone else. In return, the person who gets the 6 Pokemon will often post their stories of their in-game progress. What I really enjoy about scrambles is that, in both the post where someone assigns a Pokemon, and the recap of the players journeys, you can role play with your Pokemon more than usual. It also adds a connection with your Pokemon that's similar to the way you get with the Pokemon in your Nuzlockes that survive massacres and become a key figure on your team (Projared's Vileplum Nuptup, the OG Nuzlocke comics), or the way TPP got attached to many of its powerhouses (Bird Jesus, LazrGatr, M4 the Azumarill, etc.)
Moving on, here are the "Unbreakable, MUST Be Followed Rules!"
Rule #1: A scrambler under no circumstance can have more than one of the same Pokemon in a Scramble...Unless your doing an all (Pokemon) run, but...
Rule #2: Under no circumstance can you give out no-evolution...Magikarp, Caterpie, Metapod, Weedle, Kakuna, Unown, Wurmple, Cascoon, Silcoon, Feebas, Kricketot, Burmy, Combee, and Tynamo.
Rule #3: Unless the user who wants a challenge wants one, do not give out a Legendary Pokemon, we do no want to hear about how you soloed the E4 with a Palkia.
Rule #4: When you post to say that you want a Challenge, you must specify...
The Version of your game
Whether you can trade or not
Difficulty (Optional, otherwise, we assume hard)
Anything else (Like your rules, what you do/don't want to see, etc.)
Rule #5: Unless Specified, The Standard Number of Pokemon (That do not break your rules) you can accept is 6, first come first serve. Unless Specified, a Challenge giver can only give out 1 Pokemon per Challenge.
Rule #6: You can only reject a challenge you were given ONLY IF it breaks your rules, or if it "Does not fit your difficulty", or if it is one of those downright stupid challenges that nobody would even consider doing, but yeah. If you get a challenge you want to reject but you didn't say no to, too bad. You have to put up with it.
Rule #7: Just have fun. Remember, Scrambles are not Nuzlockes.
So yeah, it would be cool of this could be a thing on GAF. If it got popular enough, we could even make a seperate thread for it
