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Old 07-04-2017, 04:51 PM   #301
Talon87
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Originally Posted by Emi View Post
Wishiwashi is incredible did you just, not level it over 20
lol, I should probably explain that thinking better. I was playing without spoilers for the most part, and with Wishiwashi, my working assumption had been that for Schooling to work you needed to have a team of x6 Wishiwashi. I didn't look up the mechanic until later, and by that point in time I had already moved on.

I'm not honestly sure if I ever used Wishiwashi after it reached a certain level. I know it's well past Level 30 now. I want to say anywhere between 36 and 53. I think the last time I ever used mine in battle was on the beach of the second island near where you find Sandygast and Pyukumuku. Long, long time ago.

Looking up his stats now, I'm kinda surprised I didn't see a single one in use at North American Internationals. There were a number of Trick Room users. I wonder what it is about Wishiwashi that scares off the competitive players. Seems like he was meant to be used in Trick Room, and Trick Room pretty much belongs to Doubles.

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Originally Posted by dirkac View Post
I think he's referring to Fomantis and I will not have you shittalk my mantis orchid
Oh no I am definitely referring to shitty Bounsweet and how amazingly adorable and yet astonishingly shitty it is. (Not referring to Tsareena at all. Again, keep in mind: I typically didn't look things up while playing. Even if I had, Tsareena wouldn't have had a spot on my team: Physical Grass is a slot already taken by Decidueye.)
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Old 07-04-2017, 04:59 PM   #302
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See, to me I've got a largely different opinion of XY than you do. I found the region fun. To this day it's the only game I've willingly replayed (The 'willingly' bit is a result of my saying gen 3 mons were shit and thus it resulted in a gen 3 mon only run of OR). But the 'friendships' storyline of XY... It was grating. Dull, irritating and barely consistent with how frequently it appears. AZ's story is admittedly one of the few times they've actually done a properly emotional storyline right, and I did sort of like the way it drip-fed you the tale through the bards in the Pokemon Centers.

Although given your list, there's a lot I'm really not in agreement with.
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Originally Posted by Talon
RBY-FRLG = XY > BW2 >= HGSS > ORAS-RSE > DP > SM > BW1 > GS
Personally, mine would go something like:

BW > B2W2 = FRLG > XY > HGSS = DPPt = SM > ORAS, with suspended judgement on RB because I fucked mine up and I'm infinitely stuck at Rock Tunnel so that's soured the experience.

The 'average bar' so to speak of HGSSDPPtSM is pretty self-explanatory: DPPt were my first games, so they're the benchmark from which I judge them, HGSS were awful games but Voltorb Flip and the Pokeathlon are the best side attractions they've ever put in a Pokemon game, so that redeems them immensely, and SM were... Meh. They were different yet the same. The first couple of hours were 85% unskippable cutscene, the trials felt almost exactly like gyms but without decent trainers, the kahunas felt like gyms without the puzzle, the islands just served to keep the progression even more gated, the story was pretty bad as a whole, but the removal of HMs and a handful of characters saved it. Lusamine was beautifully complex and yet understandable, the progression of Lillie throughout the game is well done for once, and Nebby is one of the best characters they've put out in a Pokemon game. I'd feel safe betting actual money that anyone who played and put in the effort to pay attention to the story in that game was at the very least tempted to nickname the legendary even if, like me, they don't normally. SM has such a myriad of strengths and weaknesses that they sort of cancel each other out.

With regards to the rest of my list... ORAS, as a game, is probably the worst Pokemon game I have played since Dash. Even GtI was better in my books. FRLG, to me, is the standard for what the games could be if they skipped the story shit and focused on making a decent fucking game: It's gen 1 with the majority of the flaws removed. Yes there's not much regional or character development, but there doesn't need to be. There's none of this 'chosen one' mumbo jumbo bullcrap we keep getting. Then we hit gen 5. BW was actually the first Pokemon game to keep me fully and wholly interested (and not entirely because I didn't spend two months trying to find the exit to the second route like I did in DP). It was a clean slate, it was new, it was a proper change. You didn't have Magikarp or Pikachu or the older mons, but you didn't miss them either. BW were the games that made me genuinely start liking Pokemon. B2W2... was good, for most of the same reasons, but there were a few bits I wasn't a massive fan of, including the original protagonist (Which is why Pokemon sequels are hard to handle: Where did the other you go?) and the part that I didn't like: The original starting-out point became insanely high-levelled, and that didn't sit well with young Iron. The achievement book was fun though.
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Old 07-04-2017, 05:15 PM   #303
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>Kalos
See, I found the Region as a whole to be very interesring. The locales and history were both very compelling, and always left me wanting for more. Overall, as a Region I'd say Kalos is among the best developed. The problem to me lies in the plot of it. Team Flare was mmajor garbage for the most part, the friendship thing was decent at best but more often than not was silly and annoying, and AZ was paced poorly. I'm not even going to begin touching Team Flare aside from that the moment I enjoyed the most was probably the climax at Geosenge despite the rest being trash.
The friendship thing was something that I felt had promise but was just squandered really badly. Serena/Calem getting fucking depressed by constantly losing despite being touted as some strong whatever made me actively feel bad beating them and honestly I feel like that isn't something that should be promoted in a Pokémon game where the theme foes not revolve around that ethical issue at all. The three stooges were beyond useless and had extremely bland personalities. I like Trevor the most literally only because of the deal at Frost Cavern and because he actually at least had the tiniest growth out of the three, but even then it was just miniscule. If the three of them just got more solo appearances and would actually develop rather than being one note "DANCE/Dex pls/uh cute things" over and over and over it would be a lot better, I'd say.
As far as AZ goes, I liked the bard dripping they gave. I liked his plot. What I didn't like was the pacing and how little else of Kalos 3000 years ago was revealed. Like, the progression went from "there is a big dude" > "hey it's big dude" > "I MURDERED AND DESECRATED THE GRAVES OF THOUSANDS TO RESURRECT MY FRIEND". Furthermore, all we knew of the ancient times was that there was a war. It killed. Floette died, Ancient Weapon, ended, Floette revived and left.
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Old 07-04-2017, 05:55 PM   #304
Talon87
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Originally Posted by Ironthunder View Post
But the 'friendships' storyline of XY...
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Originally Posted by dirkac View Post
The friendship thing was something that I felt had promise but was just squandered really badly.
Guys, guys ... I never said I was a big fan of the friendship subplot.

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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
I feel like XY's story is divided into three parts -- the Team Flare subplot, the AZ subplot, and the best friends forever subplot -- and while I'm happy to give you that the Team Flare subplot is pretty weak, I think the best friends subplot is about on par with most of Sun & Moon's while the AZ subplot is hands down the best subplot between the two games.
It feels like you guys took this to mean, "He thinks the friends subplot is good! >O" and proceeded to explain to me why you guys think it's bad. Uhh ... guys? ^^; Of course it's bad. Everyone hates Tierno. Everyone thinks Shauna is 2-dimensional. Everyone thinks Trevor is meh. And of course everyone thinks that Rival Calem / Rival Shauna is underdeveloped.

I wasn't saying the friends subplot is good. I was saying it's about on par with most of Sun & Moon's plot. Sun & Moon is ... very dopey, a lot of the time. Sometimes it works okay (the comic relief in the fire trial) ... sometimes it works very well ("GET IN THE BAG, NEBBY!") ... but most of the time it makes the game feel like it's been written for babies. Kukui's secret identify as the Masked Royal is never a secret to begin with ... his destiny as Alola's first stand-in "Champion" for the first crowned Champion to take on is equally obvious ... and as for most of the Trial Captains, they ... are just uncomfortably cartoon character-ey. They feel very much like they're written for a babies cartoon. I guess it makes perfect sense then why they're the co-stars of the Sun & Moon anime alongside Ash.

Where Sun & Moon's plot really shines is three characters -- Lusamine, Lillie, and Guzma. Even Gladion and the subplot with Type:Null is meh, but his sister is, like I wrote several months ago, without a doubt the best-written character in Sun & Moon. I don't think she's the best sidekick character in the history of the games -- for me, that honor still goes to rival Hugh from Black & White 2 -- but she has a clear progression arc, she goes from being a little annoying to being cute and endearing, she's just good. Lusamine is also good (and much alluded to at this point), but I think Guzma doesn't get enough credit either. I think the plot twist about who the Skulls are -- mostly kids who failed the island challenge -- and about who Guzma is -- someone who is legitimately talented, who feels the Island Challenge is fundamentally flawed, who feels sorry for these kids who are humiliated after failing the challenge, and who wants to dismantle it from without -- all of this is fascinating. Guzma's challenges are not even entirely addressed by game's end. Kukui goes ahead with his wide-eyed vision of a Pokémon League for Alola, turning a blind eye to the fact that, just as the Island Challenge produced legions of Skull Grunts, so too might the new League system churn out hundreds of dejected young men and women who are made to feel like shit for either a) failing to get all eight gym badges or b) failing to become Champion.

But for every Lillie the game presents us with, there's also a Hau waiting in the wings to make me grimace at just how Tierno 2.0 he is. (Fucking Hau, man. We went from Hugh ... to this. ) For every Lusamine or Guzma, there's a Faba or 2-dimensional Trial Captain.

Not everyone has to be deep. But the ones that are shallow, it's nice to have some glitter. There's not much depth to Olivia, but we get to enjoy things like a) how she's single despite being so fetching and b) how she adores cute things like Stufful even though her specialty is in Rock-type training. There's not much depth to Hala, but it's enough to know that he's a grandfatherly sort to go easy(-ier) on the little kids just starting their journeys on the first island and yet when he takes the kid gloves off he's a fearsome trainer who was rightly identified by Tapu Koko as his island's greatest warrior.

Anyway ... I don't want you guys thinking that I though the Forever Friends <3 subplot was glorious writing. I didn't, and I don't. It's just that, ... just as XY has its AZ subplot but not much else going for it plot-wise, SM has its Aether & Skulls subplot and then not much else going for it plot-wise.

... Maybe it's easier if we can all simply agree that BW2 remains the game with the best-written plot to date? ^^; And even BW1 and BW2's plots are flawed ... We're still waiting on a truly perfect plot out of Pokémon ... :\
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Old 07-05-2017, 01:43 AM   #305
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Never said it in response to you thinking ot was amazing or whatever, I jsut saw it got brought up so responded with my own feelings on it.
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Old 07-05-2017, 08:13 AM   #306
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Just found out about a certain cameo in Sun & Moon, after having seen what I thought was merely "What if ...? " fanart of it yesterday ...

"NO WAY! "

Amazing. I don't want to know any more details than I already do. (Which is where one finds him.) This is amazing, and makes me that much more depressed about something I'd actually been meaning to discuss long before now ...

Alternate Timelines & Their Consequences On Canon: Starting with Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire, Game Freak opened the Pandora's Box of alternate timelines. I didn't much mind it as a one-off in the Delta Episode of ORAS, but with its prominent likely return in Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon, I'm forced to confront the elephant in the room:

Game Freak is actively working to absolve themselves of canon consequences from their games' scripts -- and in the process, is neutering fans' ability to enjoy the running canon of this franchise.

What do I mean by this? Well, let's start back at the beginning. Originally, you have Pokémon Red and Green, the one and only story in the franchise so far. Soon after, you get our very first sequel, Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver. The games aren't just the second in the franchise -- they're a narrative sequel as well, picking up three years after RGB left off and making numerous nods to these games' canon. References to Team Rocket's disbanding, Red becoming the Champion, and so many other events from RGB are made here in GSC, and GSC continues to develop them further. Misty's now older and dating ... Janine is now the Gym Leader in Fuchsia City, her father having been promoted to the ranks of the Elite Four ... and Giovanni's son (confirmed a decade later with the Gen 2 remakes Heart Gold and Soul Silver) is out to prove himself.

We then cut to Gen 3, with a whole new narrative that doesn't have too many tie-ins to the two previous gens. But that's okay, because we're still world-building here, and everything's interconnected. Fast forward to Gen 4 and it's much the same -- Gen 4's story more or less stands on its own two feet, but things are said and done here which implicitly flesh out the same world of the RGB, GSC, and RSE games.

On to Gen 5, and once more we have the fans debating when these games take place relative to the four previous generations. Consensuses are reached, Game Freak even weighs in, and the fans are happy to have a burgeoning canon. Again, the plot of these games doesn't much affect what came before, but insofar as there are connections, they engage and titillate those fans who have been with the franchise from Day One.

As we enter Gen 6, everything's fine. XY does much the same as its predecessors, telling a story of its own while also implicitly adding on to the tapestry of the Pokémon timeline shared with its five predecessors.

... And then we reach ORAS. And something strange happens. Rather than say "We're improving RuSa. Consider this more of a Special Edition" like they did with HGSS, Game Freak comes along and says -- no, all but declares with the inclusion of the Primals and the addition of the Delta Episode -- that ORAS takes place in an alternate reality, in an alternate timeline, from -- at the very least -- the original Ruby and Sapphire. We're not revisiting the same story with a new veneer -- we're looking at how the events went down in an alternate timeline where Mega Evolution was a thing, Primal Reversion was a thing, and a girl came to visit from an alternate reality.

Suddenly we're confronted. "Wait, so ... Mega Evolution's not necessarily a thing in the universe where RBY, GSC, RSE, and DPPt all took place? " "Wait, you're telling me that ... that even X and Y might very well have not taken place in the same universe as Red and Blue? " Uh oh. Shit. Suddenly the fans' ability to string all of the games along together into one woven tapestry is starting to ... unravel.

And on we go into Generation 7. Where the game opens Pandora's Box just a little bit wider and says, "Here you go! Have another plot revolving around visitors from another dimension!" This time it's unclear whether that other dimension is from an alternate reality or whether it's from a different corner of space of the same reality that Sun and Moon's Alolan Islands find themselves in. Regardless, the box is opened: "you can be sure that Sun and Moon happened in a reality, but you can't be certain that it happened in the same reality (as other games')."

This presents a problem for fans like myself who want a long-running narrative.

This presents a problem for fans who place value in cameos.

And this presents a problem for fans hoping for a simple timeline --

-- Because suddenly, we've gone full Zelda. ^^;

That's right, folks: our precious Pokémon has decided to go full Zelda Timeline and present us with forked timelines where different games might occur in different timelines relative to one another. And because the games are already so sparse on narrative details ... this presents us with, at present, an insurmountable challenge: grouping the games according to timeline.

Oh, sure! Anyone can point out that GSC is an obvious and direct sequel to RBY. No one's gonna fight you there. But what about HGSS now? Since it has the exact same Battle Frontier with the exact same Brains as Platinum, does this now mean that HGSS and Platinum take place in different realities? Or is it the same as it was before? Do we still as a fandom agree that Platinum and HGSS took place within the same reality, and that the way to explain the two different geographic locations of identical Battle Frontiers was that either a) they took place at the same time but the Brains flew between regions or b) they took place at different times, with the Brains originally being in one region before permanently relocating to the next? Before, fans would debate possibilities like these two. Now, fans have the extra wrench in the works of, "Well maybe they don't even take place in the same universe to begin with. "

What about Giovanni? In RBY, the man clearly reforms. In HGSS, they seemingly fucked up with the Giovanni cameo, having him being evil again and trying to resurrect Team Rocket three years later. The anime Pokémon Origins depicts the RBY canon; the anime short Pokémon Generations depicts the HGSS one. Previously, this felt like a fuck up on Game Freak's part. Like HGSS was undermining the canon of RBY. And a popular one at that! But now ... do we explain it all away by saying, "Oh, don't worry! Heart Gold and Soul Silver take place in an alternate reality where Red bested Giovanni but Giovanni didn't then see the error of his ways! Instead, he resented the boy who beat him and he vowed to one day resurrect his broken criminal organization!" ?

While I'm sure a lot of people enjoy this, I for one am not a fan. I've always liked that our franchise has reliably taken place within one universe, and I've enjoyed over the past 20 years watching as the universe is fleshed out. We've been to four regions of PokéJapan, we've been to an alien PokéNYC, we've been to PokéFrance, and most recently we've gotten the chance to fall in love with PokéHawaii. But now, suddenly, the fabric of this universe is threatened. There's no longer any promise of cohesion. No guarantee that what you see in a future game has any bearing whatsoever on past games, or vice versa. You thought Colress's cameo in Sun and Moon meant the games were taking place before or after the events of Gen 5? Nope! This is Colress from an alternate reality where he joins Team Aether instead of Team Plasma! () You thought Looker was a single man who had been on adventures in Platinum, XY, ORAS, and SM? Nope! Four different men, four different lives experienced! () By opening Pandora's Box, Game Freak is actively ruining our ability to reliably build histories around these beloved characters and regions. Nothing that happens in any game now has any implicit tie-ins with any of the other games any more. Everything either has to be explicitly stated ... or else it's not true at all.

I don't like it. It feels like Game Freak took a tantalizingly easy copout when producing ORAS, to try and explain away why Mega Evolution and Primal Reversion would be a thing in ORAS when they weren't in RuSa, and in doing so has carelessly ruined twenty years of work building up a cohesive universe. Oh, we've still got our multiverse to enjoy! But it's only a multiverse. We've no guarantees, no satisfaction, that anything we're seeing has any bearing on anything else we see in any other generation now.

And that sucks.
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Old 07-05-2017, 09:58 AM   #307
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For reference, it's heavily indicated that the box is actually opened by XY: The big split appears to primarily be whether or not they have Mega Evolutions, which are tied to the events of the Kalos war and the firing of AZ's WMD.

Regarding character chronology, there is potential that Looker does have some continuity: He appears, hunting evil teams, then is somehow transported to the 'alt-world' with Megas, probably by being a Faller himself (given how his cameo in ORAS goes) and joins the police over there, but this time he's hunting Ultra Beasts. Personally I think there's going to be some link in the DP remakes where thee games return to the megaless world as their basis, the UBs appear and Looker disappears as a result. We may have gone full Zelda, but tbh there was very little synchronicity between games after the first two gens anyway.
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Old 03-27-2020, 11:39 AM   #308
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I found out how to get Feebas in Sun/Moon. Probably old news for everyone but
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