|
I can't believe I missed this for so long! My love for this game has waned over the years but it's still really good and dang it, seeing & hearing it just makes me feel so...cozy? Sinnoh's a very cozy region. If you've been skipping the music, you shouldn't imo. As for Chatot..I love that little hateful bird. I used one while doing some post game stuff in XY and ruined my friends with one. "Oh gently caress not the hate bird again" good times  Some fun Chatter quirks: -Chatter can't be sketched -If you record audio, it will replace Chatot's cry (this is probably why it can't be sketched) -Despite having a microphone, Gen 6 (& 7) have removed the ability to record audio so they changed it to a 65 power 100% chance of confusion.
|
#
¿
May 11, 2019 16:30
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 18, 2024 04:20 |
|
|
The DP arc is probably my favorite of the special arcs. It felt most cohesive and didn't feel like it went as off the rails in a way that bugged me like every other arc did. The Platinum arc I don't have as kind words for
|
|
#
¿
May 13, 2019 16:58
|
|
|
Actually would you mind if I talked about a bit about what the DP anime did where appropriate, crosspiece? DP is definitely one of the better series of the anime and I wouldn't mind gabbing about it like I did the battle frontier brains & facilities with emerald if there's any interest
|
|
#
¿
May 13, 2019 20:08
|
|
|
Crosspeice posted:Absolutely, feel free to talk about anything at all, it's a no No Spoiler policy for a reason. Well in that case let's talk about how our player character fared. Dawn  May is out and Dawn is in. Generally more well received than May was, Dawn is cheery, hard working & determined. She kind of reminds me of a girl rookie Ash in some cases. I mean with that description she's basically your standard shoenen protagonist but with more girly mannerisms. In fact the first episode is entirely about her. Ash doesn’t get seen at all until the last minute and they don’t meet until the third. Honestly she probably could’ve been the star of the season with no Ash and I wonder if there was a point where they considered it. Some highlights from her first 20 minutes: -So excited about her journey she almost misses the appointment -Extended fantasy sequence about which starter she’ll pick for contests -Rushing out to find some escape Pokemon from a lab accident -Extensive rescue sequence running away & saving Piplup from Ariados including action leaps, explosions and -On the fly battle planning to escape from Ariados -Meets Mesprit on the lake just like Ash saw Ho-Oh and Suicune She also trains her Pokemon about as often as Ash does, constantly experimenting with different combinations, appeals, poffins and general movements and these find use outside of battle either by her or Ash in his battles. It doesn’t sound like a lot but she really is more active than Ash’s other traveling companions. She even does a gym battle! The DP arc is one of the longer in the anime's life time and unlike Johto it doesn't feel like an eternity and a lot of that is because of how active and importantly it treats Dawn. I think her most distinctive moment in the series is the episode where she captures a Pachirisu. She’s absolutely smitten with it because it’s adorable and would be a great addition for contests but after capturing it she finds it nearly impossible to control. It’s so hyperactive, hard to handle and rarely obeys to the point that Dawn regrets capturing it and makes the hard decision to...release it. Ash has released plenty of Pokemon in his time, but it’s been more for beneficial reasons (protecting the forest, learning to excel at something, hutning down sentient malignant roots destroying the region) so this is kind of unprecedented and both Ash & Brock get on her about giving up so soon and being a trainer and so on. Now she does get it back by the end of the episode and it doesn’t reallly come up again but you can trace how she acts to her other Pokemon’s behavioral problems to what she learned in this episode. It’s more shocking they did a plotline like that at all. But you can’t talk about Dawn without talking about Contests  Her mother was a big contest star (something also from the games) and has always looked up to her and wants to follow in her footsteps. Her first episode has a few gags about over preparing for being a contest rather than going on a full journey with her Pokemon. This isn’t like May who didn’t like Pokemon to begin with and just stumbled into it as an excuse to travel the world, THEN find she likes Contests, Dawn has been ready since Day -1. And on the whole, it shows. She’s very proactive about learning from her mistakes, trying out new things and in general all of her victories feel more earned than May’s did because you see her trying way harder. It also helps that the writers have gotten better about contest drama & appeals, so even with an overreliance on ICE FREEZES WATER it’s nicer to watch. It also helps that Dawn loses. May wins almost every contest she enters, Dawn winds up losing several times to the point where she has a mini-arc where she starts passing on contests because she’s depressed about if she’ll ever get another ribbon & if it was even worth going on this journey. Amazing what not being invincible does for making you like & root for a character. At the end of the series, she decides to stay in Sinnoh because her Buneary got a modeling gig. In a follow up special episode (that never got released outside Japan…) she decides to travel to Hoenn which we get no follow up on despite Dawn coming back for a small arc in Best Wishes Season 2 for some cameos and ratings boosts. Then she heads off to Johto and hasn’t made much more than cameos since then. Super Contests  But hey let’s talk about the contests themselves real quick! Since having them all in one city would make for a non existent story arc, they just spread them all around the region like RS did and have a Pokemon League stand in with the Grand Festival. Dawn loses that, by the way, but by this point she takes it in stride. As for any other changes they just took the aesthetics. There’s no dancing round and the dress up portion is just rolled into characters dressing their Pokemon before hand as part of their full attack appeal. Otherwise it’s just like the contests last series: a round with one (or 2) Pokemon doing a fancy move appeal interacting with the trainer followed by a battle round where the focus is on showing off the Pokemon rather than winning. The PokeBall seals mechanic is also used here where you’d think they would have been in the first place. All competitors put their Pokeballs in seal balls to help accent their appeals. Otherwise the only other difference is now everyone dresses up like they do in the games. Did someone ask for an impromptu FASHION SHOW?!  Dawn’s first outfit, a lovely pink dress. Many of her other dresses would be slight variations on this until the Grand Festival.  Her main rival, Zoey, prefers fashionable suits. This one is her third variation.  Another rival and long time friend, Kenny prefers to look like a maestro. This one is from the Grand Festival.  Jessie’s contest alter-ego Jessilina goes for whatever this outfit is, with some color variations.  Ursula is the jerk rival and dresses like a low key fancier Dawn. Loves frills.  Ash participates for fun a couple times and I like his “fashionable cowboy” look a lot.  Also this happened
|
|
#
¿
May 13, 2019 22:01
|
|
|
the underground is both extremely cool and absurdly clunky, with lots of neat stuff to grab in the most roundabout laggy way Truly the most gamefreak creation of all time THOSE STONES, THOUGH, are probably the most annoying part. I remember spending ages underground trying to get the stones because they are inexplicably the only way to get more of the 4 standard stones and I wanted the pokedex drat it. Serebii claims they become "uncommon" instead of "very rare" but neither serebii nor bulbapedia have actual rates attached but there is so much garbage you will find instead. Platinum helped by having a few more evolution stones scattered about but getting these stupid things was such a nightmare for gens 3, 4, 5 and partly 6.
|
|
#
¿
May 18, 2019 01:42
|
|
|
 Hell yeah Rotom, I love that guy. And all the appliance forms are really cool. On my playthrough of Platinum I used Mow Rotom because I mean just look at him. It was great, especially throwing out leaf storms so early on in the game. Missed opportunity to not give a Robot Rotom mentioned in the (inexplicably elaborate) backstory and complete the Pulseman reference, though.  Also gently caress honey. It's a cute idea, an interesting twist on the headbutt idea and one that actually was planned since Gen 2! but it suuuuuuuuuuucks, even if you dont want munchlax.
|
|
#
¿
May 24, 2019 22:30
|
|
|
Cheryl & The Amber Castle So when you think "story arcs" in Pokemon, what comes to mind? Maybe an overarching theme for a season, like Whirl Islands? A short 2 maybe 3 parter about a significant game location or team plot? Tournaments? Maybe the league? Well for some reason there are 3 episodes dedicated to Cheryl in the Eterna Forest and a honey plot line and hell if I know why. So far as I recall none of the other partner trainers have this at all.  Cheryl's generally a nice person which you can see in her dialog in the games. Unlike the games, the gang isn't helping her through the woods, they're helping her find "enchanted honey". She's been traveling around on her own and been looking to capture a Burmy, because she's actually a treasure hunter from a whole family of treasure hunters and Burmy will lead her to the honey. Also they made her a weirdo and it owns "My beloved grandfather once said: 'Once you've caught a Bug-type Pokemon, you may never hold hands with a man again!'" "All roads begin with Burmy!" [Team Rocket kidnaps Burmy in the middle of a battle] "Well that's not nice." [Team Rocket boasts what they're going to do with Burmy] "So you're going to evolve Burmy for me? That's so nice!" She pulls out a wacky treasure map trying to find The Amber Castle an enhcanted castle where the enchanted honey is rumored to be and how no one has ever been there. Cheryl didn't have much personality, even in Platinum, so I approve. a quick tl;dr leading us to the amber castle Episode 1: Capture Burmy, find out about the honey, evolve Burmy. Shenanigans ensue for evolving because Burmy is so weak even Team Rocket accidentally beats it. Turtwig literally beats it in one blow while blinded by the leaves. This happens at one point though  and suplexes wobbs into meowth into the ground. Why isn't that something it can do in the games, gamefreak?? Episode 2: Mothim leads them ...in a full circle to the tree where they caught Burmy last episode, instead of the enchanted honey. Then a Gloom. Then a Gardenia shows up and half the episode is a battle against Ash. But a team rocket encounter later we get back on track and find a Combee...wall.  Both characters know that Combee make the enchanted honey but for some reason Cheryl didn't think to just search out Combees in the first place...? Episode 3: Another chase sequence later they finally enter the Amber Castle, hidden deep down in a giant cave behind a waterfall.  Spoiler alert this doesn't exist in the game at all, though it'd be a pretty cool set piece. The castle proper is hidden behind a ton of tunnels that gives the vibe more of an ant hill, and then a wall of (defense order) combee protects it even further. It's easy to get lost but thankfully we have...literally any Pokemon because it's not just Mothim that can sniff it out. You're worthless, Mothim. Why did you even come here. Team Rocket starts digging around, makes Vespiquen (already territorial) super mad and sicks swarms of Combee firing beams (people theorize this is how Attack Order works) through the caverns to gently caress everyone up and isn't too pleased once everyone breaks into the hive. Cheryl sees no issue to this, no sells all the combee staring angrily at her, talks to the Vespiquen about her backstory and asks for some honey. Then the good animators burst through the ceiling as the frames per second triple for the finale with TR and almost destroys the entire thing. yadda yadda yadda they fix the castle, TR is blasted out and Cheryl gets through to Vespiquen to get the honey and leave on good terms. Then the gang parts ways by way of Cheryl seeing a Beedrill, giving one last idiom of traveling alone, and off she goes never to be seen again. It's a cute little arc but it's pretty inexplicable. Did they just really really like Cheryl? Honey? Meowth, running from hundreds of bug Pokemon because they're covered in honey: Better get those honey soaked clothes off quick! James: Now? Jessie & Meowth, screaming into the sunset: Nooooooooooooooooo
|
|
#
¿
May 24, 2019 23:40
|
|
|
hopeandjoy posted:Tsk, tsk. You didn't share Meowth's.... Interesting boss fantasy. Yeah I was rewatching the dub for this and totally forgot it was here, god Hobgoblin2099 posted:
Do the Gen 3 & 4 era of the anime introduced a skit for every episode: they're looking at some Pokemon (or Technology) to steal for that episode and Meowth figures out some way even the most innocuous thing can lead to Giovanni giving them a promotion. ie: Oh Giovanni obviously goes to bed early but has trouble waking up and he'll be late for work and irate about it all! And his alarm clock sucks! WELL if he used this Loudred to wake him up every day, he would never have to worry about not hearing the alarm and getting up ready for the day and its all thanks to Meowth and his friends, let's give them a promotion! In this case, Giovanni can slather himself in Enchanted Honey which is 100 times more effective than normal honey and go on his daily run* and he wouldn't even haev to do anything special otherwise to just be DROWNING in Pokemon who will come from all over in swarms to get that honey. now that he never has to worry about team rocket getting pokemon again, he would love to give Meowth & his friends a big promotion!  These fantasies all but stopped in Best Wishes (can't wait for crosspiece to get to gen 5 because WOWEE are there things to talk about) and I don't think they came back even once they got to be wackier in XY & SM. *If Giovanni ever appears shirtless he is always always super buff 
|
|
#
¿
May 25, 2019 01:59
|
|
|
Weird quirk about Gligar is it's really blue/purple only in this game specifically. I wonder how that happened? Any time it shows up, the exact shade of pink varies a bit but here its Like here it is in DP. A bit more purple than the usual pink, but still a stark contrast.  and here it is in HGSS, with the more traditional vibrant pink.  All the other appearences before & after also maintain the normal pink hue. It applies to the back sprite too, which would go on to be used but color corrected in HGSS   Also, man, the caves. Sinnoh has a ton of caves. I don't know if it has more or less than other regions, but it feels like it does have more. Probably because Mt. Coronet is the centerpiece of the region. So it's a shame they never really varied their design until gen 5. Starting then they really tried adding either some big gimmick to the caves or a completely different visual style.
|
|
#
¿
May 30, 2019 05:26
|
|
|
Nondevor posted:... is the painter a Something Awful reference with “My They did, I think Platinum specifically is the last time they did so before using...in-house localizers, I think?
|
|
#
¿
May 30, 2019 05:33
|
|
|
how could you forget to show off the line where a Blackbelt laments that his Gyarados isn't considered cute enough for the amity square?! And now that we're on Route 209 it's time to post one of my favorite remixes that Brawl inexplicably brought about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AZJ-cPcKtk Brawl's other 3 gen 4 remixes were Vs Dialga/Palkia, Vs Wild Pokemon and Vs Team Galactic so it kind of stands out but I adore it. Route 209 owns. When will Glaceon get the justice it deserves? Platinum: Gym 7 HGSS: Not available at all (neither is Leafeon) BW2: Post-game (Leafeon too) XY: Gym 7 SM: victory road USUM: It's still victory road but I am pointing it out because they added another magnetic area for Vikavolt/Probopass/Magnezone and extended the mountain area for Crabominable but did not do this It's also only available in ORAS after the climax but that also applies to eevee as a whole so we'll give that a pass.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 3, 2019 00:01
|
|
|
Arcade Rabbit posted:I was one of the few people who really liked Contests back in Gen 3. Gen 4 stripped down the part I actually cared about, and then tacked on a poorly designed DeviantArt minigame, and followed it with 3 minutes of touch screen DDR that felt like 3 hours. Contests definitely needed more work, but this really wasnt it. And then Musicals
|
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2019 01:58
|
|
|
quote:"Its stones appear to have shifted..." after talking to 8 people. haha what? I never knew that the message changed as you talked to people Also fog was used in one other game. Of all places....  Pokemon Battle Revolution's Courtyard Colosseum would occasionally have Fog cover the field. It's the only colosseum that can have weather affect the field and they chose...Fog.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 9, 2019 23:41
|
|
|
Babies would be totally fine provided they were naturally integrated and paced appropriately. On paper a baby Pokemon can give earlier access to a Pokemon line and help spread it into a more full fledged experience. It's me, I'm the one who thinks puchicorn should have been a final pokemon. But incense ruins them ever feeling truly natural and when they do show up in the wild there's often other things that just make you go "why" like hey great Mime Jr/Bonsly in the wild? That's cool! Mr. Mime & Sudowoodo are kind of high in BST so it would make sense for babies to come early. But also you get them right when they already know Mimic or are like a level away so....why? The happiness babies also don't help matters. Igglybuff sucks and you have to use it for ages for it to become ...another bad Pokemon, who itself may have to wait an eternity before you can even maybe get a stone to evolve it.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 10, 2019 01:02
|
|
|
I love Drifblim, but it's the one time I replaced a member permanently on the doorstep to the e4. About 3/4ths of the way through Victory Road he just wasn't pulling his weight. as much as I'd have liked. My platinum run I got VERY involved in that clefairy minigame because I wanted Flamethrower for Houndoom It was....a while.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 16, 2019 19:04
|
|
|
Blueberry Pancakes posted:I don't know if I'd say Lucario's problem is so much furry bait as it is that it was basically designed to be the "cool 'mon" and then shoved into your face relentlessly after its debut. I think they wouldn't keep doing it if it didn't work Because they tried the same thing with Zoroark and it failed miserably. I don't think Lucario would've gotten such focus if he did not stick with people. Frankly I'm surprised Ash never got a Lucario himself 
|
|
#
¿
Jun 17, 2019 01:43
|
|
|
Carbon dioxide posted:I still think it's crazy that mega evolutions were introduced by the creators giving credit to the 90s Mewthree rumour. and then rounded out by giving us Mewfour!
|
|
#
¿
Jun 17, 2019 22:41
|
|
|
 Who thought these levels were a good idea every eeveelution was like this! It wasn't until Eevee showed up in BW2 that they went "maybe this was dumb".
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2019 02:44
|
|
|
AradoBalanga posted:I know Flareon gets dunked on a lot for its own clusterfuck of...everything, but yeesh, the Eevee tree overall really gets screwed over hard as time goes on. Good to know that GameFreak eventually realized that "Hey, maybe one of the most recognizable Pokemon from our franchise needs, you know, some decent coverage in literally everything." What's more amazing that it took 16 years* for GameFreak to realize this, like goddamn. In terms of coverage the special ones at least get Shadow Ball, Vaporeon gets Ice Beam and there's a few odds & ends here and there but by & large even today the eevees are very defined by their primary typing since it's their gimmick so they rely on their surprisingly nice support pool to differentiate their roles level 43 for a fang attack, though. Just. What was going on here.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2019 03:40
|
|
|
I am so glad the ystopped doing the safari zone because it was always bad and their attempts to change it up were also bad. the marsh may be the nadir of the concept.Blaze Dragon posted:
Dynamaxing can only be done in gym fights (mmmaybe the whole gym?), the league, online and in max raid battles. The in-universe reasoning is you need to be in arenas designed for it (thus: stadiums and the max raidzone), though I'm guessing other notable fights will also be dynamax-compatible like against the evil team and later rival battles. But it's fine, half the dex wont be able to dynamax anyway Because they don't exist
|
|
#
¿
Jun 25, 2019 00:43
|
|
|
SirSamVimes posted:Why do people assume that half the dex is being cut? All we know is that not all of them are getting in. The largest regional dex in the series is XY with 457 (450 + 3 event legends + 4 kanto legends) and that seems like a cut off for their given reason of "balance" (rollin' my eyes here) & animations (rollin' my eyes for different reasosn). Maybe 500 or so? I would be very surprised if the Galar dex reached I don't know... 600? And even then we'll probably get to around 900 pokemon so that'd still leave out almost a third of all pokemon, which like...that's not much better than missing about half? if it is a really big number in the dex, like only missing maybe ~100 pokemon, then they really should have given numbers while tearfully talking about this and giving interviews because while cutting pokemon is still kinda dumb 100(ish) is a lot easier to swallow than the over 400 that everyone lept to. Blaze Dragon posted:Because something bad but vague was said therefore we must assume the absolute worst and it will definitely happen. But even I can't be that pessimistic
|
|
#
¿
Jun 25, 2019 03:48
|
|
|
AradoBalanga posted:To be honest, the Pokemon franchise has reached a point where it would make sense to start dropping off the less popular 'mons and go with "new regional 'mons and a 'greatest hits' selection of the previous gens" for Pokedexes in the future. The franchise has ballooned to the point where keeping everything in each successive game is going to increase the workload at an equal amount. Plus, it would let the newer Pokemon have a chance to stand out and make their mark instead of competing with previous 'mons. This is why I love the Unova Pokedex, because it did exactly that: have it be primarily the new Unova Pokemon while the previous 'mons are part of the National Pokedex. And since Nintendo said at E3 this year that they want to do what they can to not put too much pressure on its employees for future products, if that means a smaller Pokedex in future games, then let them do that. Outside of the original RBY games and Platinum (since Rowan only asks for you to see Pokemon, not catch them), I have never filled out a full Pokedex in the games I have played. I would rather have a smaller/condensed Pokedex with less 'mons to worry about than having to collect and find nearly ONE THOUSAND unique species because I am not the player who cares about Pokedex completion. Shoot BW2 & XY only had the pokemon in its pokedex. SM was similar, though it had another 84 extras from Island Scan. Generaly those regional veterans are the ones that get tweaks to their movepools while the remainder stays mostly static but with TM compatibility updated and an extra move here and there thrown in.So regionals are very much the focus. Starting with XY, there was also a delayed period of time put in between a game coming out and compatibility with Bank being added, to have those last longer. And the first year or 2 of VGCs always limited pokemon to what's in the regional dex. They have been putting ways to keep the focus on the readily available Pokemon, especially the new ones, for a while now The difference is now the rest of the Pokemon wont ever be there, where as before you still got to mess around with them and trade them around and go online if you wanted, provided you transferred them over. I'm someone who loves filling out the pokedex and loves to bring in old guys for some other playthroughs that I dont get a chance to and loves just messing around with my older Pokemon in a new setting. So the idea of going goign "eh no one cares about these, lets just ignore them" is both very subjective and also weirdly dismissive. I've seen even casual fans get upset by this so its not just the grognard portion of the community probably looking for any excuse to sling abuse at the staff Commander Keene posted:Yeah, as long as it's, "well we know people don't like these mons so let's not waste time modeling them" and not "pay $1.99 for Charmander and $3.99 for Mewtwo" I'm fine with the entire goddamn pokedex not being in Gen 8. well now it's lets not waste time adding ???? animations* and please pay probably $5 a year to use Home (ideally not a separate subscription from Bank becaue then it's $10 to transfer up which wow), to keep half your pokemon until a pokemon game comes out where you can use them again. Honestly I wouldn't mind paying for the remainder of the Pokemon to be added as DLC provided it was one lump sum. They have to touch them eventually anyway, paying for their work now just expedites it in a more stress free instance for later projects provided they dont keep going "what if we did more animations?!" anyway look i get it long term it is never going to matter, they have no reason to ever go back on it because it will never affect game sales, gamefreak in general is probably on pokeburnout considering they have team 2 doing their own projects, gamefreak is bizarrely small for the franchise their behind and pokemon is now on an eternal yearly march so time is tight and blah blah blah but it still sucks and i'm still mad at video games designed for dumb babies *the models are the same but with new textures and most of the animations are the same as well, as from when they made them in XY and added walking animations in SM. There seem to be a few extra animations to their standard set here and there but if there's more substnatial ones it's saved for the pokemonamie/refresh type thing which they probably should have shown off before talking about gutting the pokedex. It probably wont be until gen 10 before they have to completely redo all the models again, they made these things to last.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2019 06:15
|
|
|
Anyway sorry for dragging this to the General Pokemon Zone again here's an image of a tiny child Roark getting a fossil from his dad The anime really loved the gen 4 leaders, using them for a bunch of episodes and havign fun thing like child flashbacks or Gardenia losing her mind over every grass type with a pulse and crasher wake leading a croagunk festival. I've been meaning to talk about them next but i keep forgetting and now there's 5 of them to talk about!
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2019 06:24
|
|
|
Blueberry Pancakes posted:Wasn't there an episode where she had someone's Bulbasaur Vine Whip her back repeatedly while getting some kind of weird enjoyment out of it? Her introductory episode has her going nuts over Ash's turtwig, get hella enjoyment out of Cacnea using pinmissile on her, gets her head bitten off by Carnivine and praises it all the while she's a grass type nut
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2019 19:16
|
|
|
Hippopotas is one of those Pokemon I always want to use but the combination of availability (have to go out of your way for it here, have to use the safari zone post game in HGSS, post game/breed/DW in BW1, 2 & USUM, not in ORAS/SM) and having to go out of your way for the hidden ability (gen 5-on) to use it without sandstream annoyance. It's very cute, though. Also I've actually completed the Maid challenge once. It's not really worth it, as you can see, but it's...cute? It's such a weird thing, I wonder why they added it in. Just some intern did it in their off time or what
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2019 03:14
|
|
|
Oh actually here's a cute thing, there was a Hippopotas in the anime that showed up twice for some reason and it was loving adorable Its tail wagged like a dog, it rode around on ash's head, it had a yawn gimmick ("Mass Hip-Po-Sis!"), butch & cassidy were there  A real A+ pair of fillers, Ash should have caught it
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2019 03:19
|
|
|
I had no idea that Platinum added 5 unique tracks for the Master class dances  Crosspeice posted:It's not particularly exciting, but at least that's the worst side mode in this series. Right? RIGHT??? 
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2019 21:44
|
|
|
I'll talk about it in more detail later, since I want to cover Team Plasma at the climax, but the anime really loved this scene because it's the big introduction to Cyrus. And it is fantastic. Cyrus in a civilian business suit and giving not-at-all-ominous speeches and swarms of golbat Cynthia's grandmother is also a professor, I believe.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2019 04:12
|
|
|
let's talk about The Many Rivals of Ash You know what’s weird? Despite going “we're rivals now [shot reverse shot of them staring intensely]” a lot, Ash rarely gets season-long rivals. Even Gary showed up so infrequently across Kanto & Johto he may as well not count. Which always leads to suddenly introducing a bunch of people at the league to fight and no one Ash has actually met. Not so in Sinnoh! Here Ash doesn’t just get some league rivals, he gets four of them that he meets and interacts with throughout the show. Nando  This goober started out as a seeming random character of the day not sure if he wants to do contests or gym battles. But then he started showing up again and again and wound up being in both the Grand Festival AND the Pokemon League. S-surprise? He sing-speaks, has a cute Mew harp and gets Zoey to almost tear his head off for daring to compete in both because it’s wishywashy (she gets over it). His battle style is more “elegant” than anything else, with a trend towards grass and “performance” pokemon (like Kricketune, Roserade, Lopunny) and also an Armaldo. Honestly despite his shtick….he doesn’t really stand out at all. He shows up, we get a small update on him, maybe see a performance and that’s that. Despite showing up more than the other league rival, he’s probably the weakest and least memorable of Ash’s rivals. Sadly this is kind of the standard used in Unova, too.... But hey Ash got to use his new Quilava against him, so that was cool. Conway  Now Conway, there’s a memorable character. You remember the super nerd type character class? This is basically that. He’s sneaky, smart and does more advance plays and such. We’re first introduced to him in the end of the first year of the DP season, as a competitor at a smaller, tag team tournament where he teams up with Dawn and almost wins with her. Then he got brought back for the end of year 2’s 4 part summer camp arc which had a lot of gags about him being kind of a creepy guy who gets a little cocky. Honestly he’s great and not as big a creeper as you’d think, though, so it was a nice surprise when he got brought back as one of Ash’s matches in the league. His specialty is … basically using game strategies! Liberal usage of protect, he has a Trick Room team, he has a Shuckle that uses Power Trick. You virtually never see things like this in the anime so it was a real treat to see Ash deal with it in the league. I’d suggest watching his match, it’s fun to see the slow Pokemon zoom around. Barry  Now here was a pleasant surprise! The anime ignores Rivals most of the time. We had Gary and that’s about it. Silver never showed up (beyond a cameo in a side episode), Wally never showed up, Brendon only had some movie cameos...but then suddenly Barry showed up about half way through the series and he’s spot-on. He’s still childhood friends with Dawn, he’s hyperactive, he’s fining people and also he’s competent in battle. One of my favorite gags is how his Empoleon is just constantly exasperated from dealing with Barry’s….Barry-ness. Since Barry grew up with Dawn we also get a few extra details: he’s one of the people who knows the horrible origins of Dawn’s embarrassing nickname and the gang returns to Twinleaf for a few episodes letting us see Barry with his dad, Palmer, some backstory on how Barry loved catching bugs and how his Heracross was one of his first Pokemon and then he jammed out on a festival drum. Barry owns, Sinnoh owns. In the anime he idolizes Paul which gets under Ash’s skin leading to a battle, among other arguments. Barry barely gives him the time of day until Ash beats Byron and they reconcile during the Iron Island arc. He’s never shown to believe some of Paul’s worse traits, but you can see how it relates to Barry’s team variety and battle strength.  Quick aside, but when Barry shows off his badges we see an anime staple: anime-exclusive badges we don’t see the context to. I always really liked when the anime does this,, because it makes the regions feel bigger. Like of course there’d be more than 8 gyms scattered around, right? It’d be nice to see them for kicks one day, though. Anyway, Ash never fights Barry at the League, though. Paul does, which is meant to be a humbling experience for Barry but even Paul warms up to him by the end. You know, in the only way Paul can do so. Which leads us to Paul  You can’t talk about rivals without talking about Paul. Paul is THE rival for Ash. He shows up at the start of the series and he never stops showing up and confronting Ash because they have completely different ideologies. I called Conway as using game strategies but Paul is the closest to the actual mindset of a competitive player. One of his first scenes is catching a bunch of Starly and releasing the weaker ones. If a Pokemon doesn’t perform adequately he releases or trades it away. He holds his Pokemon to an extreme regard and was downright abusive to his Chimchar because it was “too spoiled”, “useless,” and refused to access its real power, ultimately ending in its release and subsequent ownership to Ash. He’s also not all-talk. While he does get owned it’s usually by the crème of the crop like Cynthia or Brandon, he is shown to be extremely competent, working around the opponent’s strategies and having a large assortment of strong Pokemon to have at any situation. He’s even competed in three other regional leagues, though he didn’t win them. One of the biggest moments in the series is he & Ash stop having increasingly vocal arguments and instead have a full 2-part 6 on 6 battle that ends in Ash’s total defeat. All said it’s the best rivalry in the series. It’s the only one they really build upon since he meets up so much, they have a distinct difference in everything they do, they use Chimchar’s development to go alongside it and you get to learn a lot about him. He’s competed in 3 other regions before this, his Torterra was his starter Pokemon, he has a brother who retired and whose loss against Brandon was part of the reason he’s so bitter today. So when Ash & Paul finally face off in the Top 8 match it feels earned and worth the time it took to get there and complete. I’d really suggest watching the match, it’s pretty good. A fun detail with that match is while Ash, who up to now has been using not just his Sinnoh team but his reserves, makes a point to use his Sinnoh team….Paul doesn’t. He uses a mix of new Pokemon and a few returning ones, with the only one Ash had fought before being his Electivire. He wasn’t going to give Ash any sort of advantage while Ash is sentimental to the end. It’s a shame, though, because it means Ash never got his revenge against the real star of Paul’s team. It’s not his starter, Torterra and it’s not the semi-starter Electivire, it’s this rear end in a top hat.  This drat Ursaring was caught during a seeming filler and wound up being one of Paul’s absolute monsters. It takes a million hits and barely shows it, it tore through 3 members of Ash’s team before, almost took down 4, against Barry it didn’t even get knocked out despite going against a Hitmonlee and a Focus Blast Emploeon, and in general it’s just a dick. Absolutely ridiculous.  Paul doesn’t stick around to see Ash’s final match, but they seemed to finally reconcile, recognizing each other’s strengths...but it's Paul so he's still kind of a jerk and keeps it to a smirk and see ya. Why do people leave these things all the time? Where are you going?? You have no other appointments! You’re 10 and you spent like a year getting here at least see the championship. At least Barry stuck around!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 7, 2019 06:22
|
|
|
Crosspeice posted:Good write up, I completely forget about Nando, even if he is a bit cheeky. Conway was the best kind of weird, but seeing his interactions with Dawn reveals he's totally crushing, while Barry is Barry and great in every medium. I mean in fairness to Ash, when he won against Brandon it was against a Ninjask, Solrock, Dusclops and a Regice that was freshly caught. He never beat his more experienced Regirock or Registeel Paul fought all 3 of Brandon's Regi with the team he meant to take to Candace I think we're meant to assume that Reggie, his brother, has his reserves and we just don't see all of them. He also might release them as time goes on. Azumarill he deemed had no more potential for getting stronger and released it, but he could have had that from a prior region.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 8, 2019 19:12
|
|
|
The ironworks is such a weird area. This series rarely does side areas like this and usually when it does they put something like a legendary there. IE: the Power Plant is off the beaten path and a ways away, but inside there's a Zapdos as well as a multitude of other electric pokemon some of which are only found there. Otherwise side areas might be just a little arm off the beaten path to find a hidden item or what have you. This one is super easy to miss and your biggest reward is the flamethrower TM. It's not bad, or anything, but it's unusual for a series that trends towards being very linear. I kind of wonder if they intended you to go here as part of the plot at one point.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2019 20:22
|
|
|
Crosspeice posted:There's a good chunk to do next update, but not enough to stave off getting our final team member, dun dun dunnnnnn! Gamefreak's Lament
|
|
#
¿
Jul 18, 2019 02:08
|
|
|
okay but it gets way worse about Feebas though Because, in Hoenn, the tiles only changed when you changed the trendy words, right? In Sinnoh the tiles change EVERY DAY also this weird quirk quote:Of the total 528 fishable tiles, one Feebas tile is located within each 132 tiles (counted left-to-right then top-to-bottom).
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2019 00:16
|
|
|
And here's how things shook out in the anime! Thank you bulbapedia & serebii for having the million images I wanted except good quality Cyrus going Team Galactic & Spear Pillar So while Team Rocket (as in, the actual team and not Jessie & James) mostly just existed in the first few seasons as a periodic excuse for a 2 episode plotline and Team Magma/Aqua were periodic appearences working towards something, Galactic felt like the one that had the msot effort put into them. They first show up at episode 35 but then make frequent appearences that are all clearly interlocking and building to something. I think it works the best of the assorted evil team plots. Their overarching goal is the exact same (summon some box legends, make a new world) but their plans are a bit more involved. They need the Adamant & Lustrous Orbs, a special Key that opens the way, the power of the Veilstone meteors, creating the Red Chain, and the lake legendaries. Their first attempt at the Adamant Orb has them trusting Team Rocket. Which fails. So they just clown on them all the time moving forward, causing a one-sided rivalry moving forward. This episode has Saturn in it but he doesn’t say anything. Later on the Adamant Orb is moved to where they find the Lustrous orb and they stage a 2 episode heist to get both. It involves taking down a cargo plane, it’s pretty cool. The Lustrous orb is, in-universe recently found in the Celestic Town ruins. Celestic Town in the anime is a more standard town rather than a more rural village, incidentally. This is where we meet Cyrus, like in the games. Unlike the games we meet him as a civilian  Which works a load better, honestly. In the anime they have him put on a nice front billionaire historian who has funded most of Sinnoh’s buildings, libraries and other such activities. Presumably this lets him get closer to things that advance his goal and god, yes, this is so much better and an easier sell than what XY tried to do with Lysandre. I mean he’s still not super subtle in his uhhh………   passion……. Anyway he goes the location of the Lustrous Orb to subtly help out openly-Galactic admins and grunts steal it by taking advantage of his position to get it out in the opening at the time Galactic is doing some terrorism. After some impassioned speeches and dabbling with Team Rocket, Galactic manages to succeed. The other part of their plan is to locate Spear Pillar using this thing, the Spear Key  It’s located in Solaceon Ruins as a mysterious cube guarded by the Unown. The episode they get it is pretty trippy, the Unown use their reality warping powers to alter the dimensions of the ruins into an escher maze. After that they take it to the Veilstone meteors because the power of those react with the cube to unfold it into the key you see above. And what THAT does is act as a compass that points at the location of Spear Pillar, the Orbs, and other stuff related to the legendary Pokemon, with the ultimate goal of gathering everything needed to use the Key to unlock the entrance. It’s all very involved.  If you were wondering, Spear Pillar isn’t just atop Mt. Coronet. It’s literally hidden, buried under layers of rock and in this big orb. Kind of a weird change but it let Galactic be more involved by searching for it so I think it works. Incidentally, the way into Spear Pillar forms steps similar to the Hall of Origin.  So the orbs are considered to literally be Dialga & Palkia (kind of similar to Reshiram/Zekrom hmm) and they’re needed alongside the lake guardians to bring out their power and summon forth the other 2. Interestingly the original plan wasn’t to just steal them it was for Mars, Saturn & Jupiter to synch with them (instead that went to Ash, Dawn & Brock). Also there is a lot of added nonsense going on here: the Galactic Bomb (made from the meteors as well) is powerful enough to do dimensional damage, breaking through to where the lake guardians are and forcing them properly into our world. To help make things go smoothly they call in one of the anime’s more interesting original additions, Hunter J.  Hunter J is so cool, she’s a high tech pokemon thief who has a bunch of crazy gadgets to capture and imprison Pokemon in bronze before selling them to her clients or highest bidders. She shows up a fair bit throughout the series and is generally shown as capable, confident and comes very close to succeeding in just about everything she does; at least once she backs off not because she was going to lose but because the client backed out. Also she loving dies  During the capture of the guardians Mesprit & Uxie send a Future Sight into the future to blow up & sink her jet plane into the lake and the last shot is this: it slowly sinking down, the glass around the ship shatters as water rushes in and her glasses rise up before it explodes. They never say she (& her entire crew!) dies, of course, but….  The climax of this was a pretty big deal at the time. They really advertised it a lot in Japan and the finale’s 3 episodes (finding spear pillar & finalizing the red chain, capturing the guardians, the events at spear pillar) were aired all at once. To quickly summarize, after getting the guardians they use fragments of the red chain to control them using a gauntlet, rather than using them to make the red chain, they use the Key to open the way to Spear Pillar, place the orbs and guardians to “use the infinite one’s” power alongside the two Red Chains to open portals to Dialga & Palkia and pull them out. At that point the red chain transforms into Arceus’ mandala conscripting the two as the clouds and such swirl around the mountain like in the games.  Although Cynthia & the gang manages to free the guardians and break the machines to cut off the connection, the red chain mandalas, which contains the “original powers” still allow Cyrus to draw the 2 out completely and start creating Cyrus’ new universe as destructive storms start raging around coronet. While Cyrus is destracted they manage to break the rings but uhhh.  He basically gets what he wanted. As the portal begins to fade, he throws himself into it, leaving everyone behind (who weren’t going to be allowed in anyway). Mars doesn’t take it lightly. But things aren’t wrapping up because now Dialga & Palkia are still mad, their powers are interacting and you would think this would be where Giratina comes into play what with the Giant Ominous Red/Black Portal To the Beyond  But instead of that happening, the guardians team up with Ash/Dawn/Brock to synch their hearts and: -seal off that other world -calm Dialga/Palkia long enough to stop making things worse -open the portal to Dialga/Palkia’s worlds and send them back Effectively, the anime’s resolution is what happens if the guardians were successful at stopping Dialga & Palkia’s rampage instead of Giratina coming in to fix their mess. As for the wrap up, they catch and arrest the other commanders and Ash & friends return to their journey. Just like the games! Except Charon, who just sort of disappears. You’d think there would be an arc with him at Stark Mountain but no! He’s just gone and Stark Mountain doesnt even show up in the anime. Bizarre, considering Buck does appear later just not at the Battle Zone. Also odd is Barry is not involved at all. Cynthia is the one at the actual mountain, along with Looker, while Gary is the one trying to run interference near the lakes.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2019 23:55
|
|
|
Black Robe posted:It was a really good arc, yeah. Though I'd have liked to see the anime's take on the part we're about to see next in the game, instead. They kick all the distortion world stuff to the giratina/shaymin movie, although there it's a different thing serving a similar purpose called the Reverse World, that you get access to through reflective surfaces.  It does more with the "Balance" concept than the games do, which is a little funny.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2019 17:31
|
|
|
Black Robe posted:Fair enough. I more or less kept up with the anime until pretty recently, but stopped watching the movies after the first handful. I'd say the Darkrai & Giratina/Shaymin movies are pretty solid and worth watching if you have an afternoon to kill or want something on in the background. Shaymin is such a little poo poo, its great
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2019 17:58
|
|
|
Sird being dropped completely always amused me. Like they were clearly building her up to something but uhhh oops! It's not like you can even put the blame solely on BW1 being a "soft reboot" considering things likeCrosspeice posted:Definitely means Emerald. ORAS Archie and Maxie are the originals that spent so long in the Distortion World their very essence was rewritten and became their remake counterparts with a limited time in the world to stop the meteor. this nonsense later down the line
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2019 02:24
|
|
|
Here's some official artwork of the area, I dig it for how different it was for both the time in the series and even now Also I forgot how weirdly high concept this entire section of the game was? Like Cyrus' whole spiel about genes, their back & forth arguments, Cynthia's thesis on the world quote:It's not possible that a Pokemon can make the world disappear. The world awaited your birth. Not only yours, either. The Pokemon with you. The people close to you. All the Pokemon and people were born because they have a part in the world. I'm convinced of that. GIRATINA won't go out of existence. This Distortion World won't disappear. Our world won't disappear, either. Kind of lofty ideas to be throwing around while Giratina has you solve its block moving puzzles three
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2019 00:56
|
|
|
I got pokerus after an excursion into Snowpoint Temple in Diamond. I remember going "oh that's cool" but also being bitter because technically Pokerus is rarer than a shiny pokemon and by that point in my Pokemon career I had only seen a shiny zubat in Silver.Blueberry Pancakes posted:Considering Kalos and Ultra Space, I'm less than optimistic. Kalos, as a region, I think is actually fine. It's probably one of my favorite regions for how it feels to go around and the variety in Pokemon. XY has other issues but I will go to bat for Kalos itself. Ultra Space I can see the worry, since they're all glorified hallways (Ultra Megalopois is SUCH a bummer and should have had way more resources put to it) but I can't see the B team making 8 full fledged worlds. Then again even the A Team is clearly having problems so maybe the distortion world would just be a flippy hallway regardless
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2019 20:48
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 18, 2024 04:20 |
|
|
Polderjoch posted:I still refuse to believe that Pokérus is actually rarer than a shiny because I've gotten Pokerus in most of my games while I've only ever gotten one shiny mon randomly, which was the togepi from the egg in platinum USUM, of all things, made a point to say that Cyrus, after making his new world with dialga/palkia, was still overtaken by Giratina, whereas Archie & Maxie are definitely a what if without the events of Emerald, so unlike Emerald in ORAS I do think we'd get Giratina crashing the party and an excursion into the distortion world either there at the climax or in the post game. I suppose the biggest compromise I'd give is make Send Off Spring a crazy distorted nightmare that takes cues from Distortion World. Because Send Off SPring's cave suuuuucks. Really the big worries I'd have would be about the rest of Platinum's changes. But this is all predicated on getting a Sinnoh remake at all. At this point I think it'll be Let's Go To Johto.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 17, 2019 01:55
|
|
