Pokémon Sun and Moon General Discussion [Spoiler Warning]

[Talon87]

When the trailer first came out, much of the speculation that I read suggested a woodpecker. There are a lot of birds we still don't have. Hummingbird is one, true, but woodpecker is another. There are a lot of woodpecker species, and the woodpecker is a rather well-known bird to most children due to its atypical behavior and the iconic sound of wood being rat-a-tat-tat-tat'ed by the bird as it hunts. It's a little surprising we haven't gotten one yet. But it also took five generations from Kanto for us to get a robin, three to four generations for us to get an eagle (Staraptor's kind of eagle-like, and Braviary is duh a bald eagle) ... we didn't get a proper mallard* until Unova with Ducklett, a swan until the same species line with Swanna ... it's quite possible that woodpecker is just on the back burner while the team circles around to hit a host of other birds that want showing.

Hummingbirds they might be holding off until they confirm/deny for themselves, as a development team, that they are going to incorporate game mechanics which a hummingbird could play off of. Because hummingbirds are pretty famous for being one of only a few birds that can fly in place and iirc the only bird that can fly backwards. So "mobility" is kind of the name of the hummingbird's game. And so, like, you'd expect the team to want to incorporate that somehow, whether into an attack or an ability or some other property of the Pokémon's ... and if an idea isn't coming to them with the current architecture, they might be making the conscious decision to shelve hummingbirds for right now.

While it might be a shame to "waste" an ability on just a single move, I was just thinking about how it would be pretty cool if woodpecker Pokémon received a boost to Drill Peck's damage and how an ability would be the most traditional way to go about doing that. ("All drill moves are boosted by 50%", for example.) While you could give the woodpecker his own super-powered Drill Peck move with a new name and 120 base power, I don't much like that idea simply because we know it's only a matter of time before they spread that move out to other comp creatures via move tutors and breeding. And like ... Drill Peck already adequately suits what a woodpecker would be doing. It just needs to be stronger when a woodpecker uses it than it is when a swallow or sparrow uses it.

That's one thing I'd like to see Gen 6 continue to work on -- niche roles for most/all fully-evolved Pokémon. There are always going to be winners and losers when it comes to the comp scene, but I would at least like to see every adult Pokémon having some role at which it is "best." Some birds deal greater damage, some take tougher beatings, some dodge attacks more nimbly, some never miss ... They're working on it, bit by bit, but yeah ... right now there's little reason to use Drill Peck over Brave Bird and so it'd be kinda neat to see if some new species or ability could make it so that, while Brave Bird is still totally awesome and still has its uses, for some Pokémon Drill Peck is actually the better bet.

* I guess Farfetch'd is a duck. I don't ever really think of it as one, though, until we start talking about eating it.

[Emi]

The one thing I'd like to see out of Gen VII is to see a focus on Hawaiian wildlife and not just trying to fill in the gaps that people want to see. Hawaii has a lot of interesting and unique wildlife and I would much rather see that than a Ruby-Throated Hummingbird or your run of the mill woodpecker. I'd be really disappointed if we got "Hawaii! Look!" and then just got a hodgepodge of different stuff that has little to no connection with Hawaii itself.

[Median Dia]

Realistically, we're going to be getting a hodge-podge anyway. We have plenty of pokemon we shouldn't if everything was based off of what would realistically be found in the area. I mean, we have two different penguin lines despite none of the regions being that far south, there's absolutely no reason why we have dodo bird (let alone one with far too many heads), and one one has to wonder why daruma dolls are so prevalent in an area based on New York, just to give a few examples. Don't get me wrong, we're definitely going to get a few that are very "Welcome to Hawaii!"-esque, like braviary and furfrou were for their respective regions, but there's no getting away from the occasional odd-ball. It's just the way Gamefreak's been handling things.

@Talon: I actually forgot woodpeckers even existed, oddly enough. (Whoops...) Sure, I hear them from time to time (read: maybe once a year), but I've never actually seen one. In comparison, I see cardinals and bluebirds, two other popular airfowl GameFreak hasn't touched yet, all the dang time, though Mr. Wireframe clearly has the wrong beak shape to be either of those. At this point, I'm more than willing to pass the vote on to it being a woodpecker- there's no way a hummingbird would get that chubby, anyway!

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Emi

The one thing I'd like to see out of Gen VII is to see a focus on Hawaiian wildlife and not just trying to fill in the gaps that people want to see. Hawaii has a lot of interesting and unique wildlife and I would much rather see that than a Ruby-Throated Hummingbird or your run of the mill woodpecker. I'd be really disappointed if we got "Hawaii! Look!" and then just got a hodgepodge of different stuff that has little to no connection with Hawaii itself.

I sympathize but would encourage you to prepare for disappointment on that front. Six generations in a row now, Pokémon hasn't done a particularly great job about localizing the creatures to their regions' IRL counterparts. You could consider that a good thing, too, especially for the older generations when it wasn't as obvious how long this franchise would carry on for or how many corners of the world we'd get to explore.

A lot of the offerings in Gens 1 and 2 aren't exactly "Japanese". Many of them are downright fantasy, like Chansey or Machamp. And many of the more realistic Indigo Pokémon are based on animals that don't scream Japan (e.g. feral cats and dogs that you can find anywhere) or that might even scream other countries (e.g. Psyduck the semi-platypus, Vileplume the Rafflesia flower, and Parasect the insect-zombifying fungus).

Fast forwarding to the more recent generations, we have obvious omissions from Unova and Kalos, like:

• the raccoon (Unova)
• the hummingbird (Unova)
• the opossum (Unova)
• the Monarch butterfly (Unova)
• the black widow (Unova)
• the sidewinder (Unova)
• the roadrunner (Unova)
• the Tyrannosaurus rex (Unova)
• the velociraptor (Unova)
• the stegosaurus (Unova)
• the brontosaurus (Unova)
• wolves (Unova or Kalos)

And we have obvious region theft from preceding regions, like:

• the squirrel (Unova)
  • they have squirrels in Japan too, but ...
  • the Japanese people I've met have all gone nuts about the number of squirrels we have in America, and seem to associate America as a country of squirrels (as compared with home)
  • Pachirisu really should have been held off until Unova, and Emolga should've been held off too (discussed below)
• the scorpion (Unova)
  • they went ahead and included this guy in Sinnoh too, when all they had to do was wait one more generation
• the beaver (Unova)
  • another one stolen by Sinnoh because they just couldn't wait for Unova
• the truffle-hunting pig (Kalos)
  • this one goes all the way back to Gen 2; Swinub is already representative of pigs that are big on smell and hovering close to the ground, smelling everything they can with their snouts. An ideal Pokémon for truffle hunting but one that's already taken
• wild boars (Kalos)
  • Unova went and stole Emboar and then made him East Asian to boot

We also have things in the newer regions that clearly belong to other corners of the world, such as:

• Blitzle and Zebstrika (Sub-Saharan Africa)
• Sawk and Throh (Japan)
• Darumaka and Darmanitan (Japan for the Daruma theme, countries with apes for the ape theme)
• Yamask and Cofagrigus (Egypt)
• Minccino and Cinccino (the Asian steppes, or other regions with chinchilla populations)
• Emolga (thanks for the squirrel, guys, but Australia and other countries would be better fits for flying squirrels than we are, even if we do technically have flying squirrels in North America)
• frill-necked lizards (Australia and maybe others, but certainly not France!)
• Litwick, Lampent, and Chandelure (awesome concept but would've been best saved for Europe)
• Mienfoo and Mienshao (East Asia)
• Heatmor and Durant (Durant alone would've been fine, but if you wanted the pairing then you should've waited until we hit a country famous for anteaters)
• the Muskedeers (DOIIIIIIIIIIIIIII! Why they didn't wait for Kalos I will never know ...)
• Pancham and Pangoro (China)
• Litleo and Pyroar (Sub-Saharan Africa)
• Espurr (why would you not save the Scottish Fold for Scotland or at least the UK in general?)
• Tyrunt and Tyrantrum (THERE'S OUR T-REX! Give it back to us! Give it back to America!)
• Amaura and Aurorus (AND THERE'S OUR APATOSAUR! Dang!)
• Hawlucha (Mexico)
• Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist (not saying they don't do Halloween elsewhere but America really made Halloween what it is today; a jack-o'-lantern Pokémon would've been much better suited to America than France imo)
• Xerneas, Yveltal, and Zygarde (everyone and his mother has pointed out that Norse mythology isn't part of France's heritage)

As you can see from these lists, Game Freak's never been too big on 1:1 matching regions up with their native flora and fauna. Sometimes a region gets animals it doesn't have. Other times it omits animals it does have. So with Alola, too, we should expect there to be some Hawaiian omissions and also some non-Hawaiian inclusions.

[Snorby]

I won't lie I really don't like the concept of "Oh, we're in Hawaii. Looks like we can have NOTHING BUT UNIQUELY HAWAIIAN WILDLIFE FOR NEW POKEMON THIS GENERATION"

It's hard to deny that GameFreak with more and more mon in recent generations is sort of grasping at straws. Unova saw virtual remakes of the Magnemite line, the Grimer line, the Voltorb line, the Golem line, the Machamp line, Chansey, and (arguably) the Tentacool line. Kalos saw actual new Pokemon being replaced in large part by Mega Evolutions. I feel like they'd run out of ideas even quicker if you limit them to the real world area the current region is based on. I'd rather have ~100 solid Pokemon that don't always fit the real-world counterpart of the region than ~30 solid Pokemon that do.

It might have been doable in earlier gens, but in earlier gens nobody knew it was gonna take off so well. Now it's far too late for that kind of selectivity, imo.

[Mercutio]

I really hope they give us a cool parrot with alternate forms like Spinda. That, you know, evolves and has useful stats.

[Zelphon]

I want a Dolphin.

[Emi]

You can definitely have more than 30 solid Pokemon just by focusing on Hawaii. From wildlife to folklore and mythology etc etc. It's really not too much to as, although its Gamefreak and they likely won't do it.

[Heather]

My god give me a parrot with useful stats and it will be to me like pikachu to Ash as my Eternal Shoulder Rider

[Talon87]

To be fair, Hawaii is a subset of Polynesia; and so while you might be able to take 30 or more uniquely Polynesian animals and plants and turn them into Pokémon, you wouldn't be able to do that for Hawaii and then six generations later for Tahiti and then five generations after that for Samoa. Eventually you're going to be repeating animals.

Game Freak is already repeating animals. Off the top of my head ...

• house cats, we've had Meowth line (Kanto), Skitty line (Hoenn), Glameow line (Sinnoh), Purrloin (Unova)
• seals, we've had Seel line (Kanto), Spheal and Sealeo (Hoenn), Samurott (Unova), Popplio (Alola)
• butterflies and moths, we've had Caterpie line, Venomoth, Wurmple line, Mothim, Larvesta line, Scatterbug line
• hippos, we've had Slowpoke line and Hippopotas line, only two but noteworthy because there's only one hippo line in the real world!
• snakes, we've had Ekans line, Onix line, Seviper, Snivy line, I'm sure I'm forgetting some (and if you go with "serpents" we can include Milotic and possibly Zygarde)
• foxes, we've had two and they were both fire
• turtles & tortoises, we've had Squirtle line, Torkoal, Turtwig line, feel like I'm forgetting several ...
• frogs, we've had Poliwag line, Croagunk line, Tympole line, Froakie line

Repetition's inevitable at this point. Sometimes fans request a do-over, like me with owls and many with wolves and bears. Sometimes the animal just plain has lots of variation IRL, like songbirds, birds of prey, or frogs.

What Game Freak needs to try more of is the "same animal, different typing" plan. You can repeat frogs but give us a fire frog and a poison frog (Croagunk) and a ground frog and a grass frog and .... Do the same thing with owls, bears, big cats, horses, and more. We're ready for Rapidash to be retyped Fire/Fairy (unicorn) and to get a stat boost. But you can also give us a Water/Ghost horse, a Dark horse, a Ground horse, etc. Same for lots of other animals.

[Heather]

if we do get a Dark horse, would you call it a Dark Horse Victory? *shot*

[Whimsy]

You know, I wouldn't mind having more alternate typed butterflies. I mean, if we got a Bug/Fairy or, to go completely off type, Dark/Fairy butterfly I'd be completely down for it.

[phoopes]

>Dark Horse

Only if Katy Perry gets to design it.

[Snorby]

*Sits and patiently awaits a pure Flying or Fairy/Flying Peacock*

[Emi]

Originally Posted by Talon87

To be fair, Hawaii is a subset of Polynesia; and so while you might be able to take 30 or more uniquely Polynesian animals and plants and turn them into Pokémon, you wouldn't be able to do that for Hawaii and then six generations later for Tahiti and then five generations after that for Samoa. Eventually you're going to be repeating animals.

I think this is true but...the point is kind of unfair? If I were to ask you to make 30 different Pokemon from Lithuania, Belarus, and the Czech Republic...I'd think you'd have a really difficult time doing that. Whether its due to anonymity (I actually had to look up Belarus because I wasn't sure if I was making it up or not) or what not, I don't know. Hawaii is more like the France or Italy of Polynesia; its relatively large, has a cultural and evolutionary distinctness from other Polynesian countries (because if I remember correctly Hawaii is like REALLY FAR from the rest of Polynesia), and its well known. I feel like we could have a regional dex that actually feels like it could come from Hawaii rather than "oh hey there is a random rhino pokemon that lives on this island in the middle of nowhere."

At the end of the day, you're right though: Gamefreak hasn't seemed to care. But I hope they do, and I think it would do them a lot of good to try in this case. I don't think many people are going to complain about "omg repeats eww"...because first of all, they'd be wrong. Second of all, shut up. :P

[biggggg5]

Anyone have any minor changes they are looking for in the new gen? things like the auto ask repel from gen 5? I think some different text for 4 times effective moves and 4 times resistant moves wold be nice. Having been watching a blind playthrough of Heartgold where she doesn't know any types. I feel like it would help people who havent memorized the type chart.

[Missingno. Master]

Originally Posted by biggggg5

Anyone have any minor changes they are looking for in the new gen? things like the auto ask repel from gen 5? I think some different text for 4 times effective moves and 4 times resistant moves wold be nice. Having been watching a blind playthrough of Heartgold where she doesn't know any types. I feel like it would help people who havent memorized the type chart.

I do have several idea. Off the top of my head...

*When Surfing on Pokémon with unique Surfing sprites, they should be Shiny if you're Surfing on a Shiny. I wanted a picture of my player character in Y Surfing on my Shiny Lapras, only to learn it didn't show it as Shiny.

*While we're at it, Shiny menu sprites. If they could give us Shiny overworld sprites in HG/SS, why the hell not?

*The return of unique encounter text for certain situations. "The hooked Skrelp attacked!" "A wild Geodude appeared from the shattered rock!" "Whoa! The Poké Ball was a wild Voltorb!" "Whoa! A Shiny Weezing appeared!*

*The Repel auto-ask should let you switch between types of Repel if you have more than one variety. If you run out of Super Repels and still have a Max Repel, it should ask if you want to use the Max Repel.

*The Master Ball should have its own special catching animation. Why does it need to bother shaking around if it's a guaranteed catch? It should make, like, a more dramatic version of the critical catch whooshing noise, and some sort of echoing noise when the ball snaps shut, and click as soon as it falls to the ground, something like that. It's the ultimate Poké Ball, I think it deserves some kind of special animation to reflect this.

[dirkac]

>The little things
The differentiation in Shiny Sprites like MM said would be nice, and so would the unique Battle Intros.

As for Repels, I'd prefer it if, when Repel is out, and you have multiple types of Repels, it asks which type you want to use and how many are left, like so:
"Which Repel would you like to use?
Repel (x4)
>Super Repel (x237)
Max Repel (x50)
None"
With the cursor defaulting to the type of Repel that was used last.


What'd also be nice is either the Journal from DPPt or the intro from FRLG returning. Just make the Journal come back, showing all the last things that happened as you start up the game, but make it be able to be turned off and on at will, and accessed in the menu.
Makes it a bit easier to get what was going on if you were, say, Breeding for something specific and forgot what you were doing.

[jolteonjak]

I believe today we are getting some news about the games. If someone could just indicate what the subject of the news is, that would be great.

[Ironthunder]

There's an official site now: http://www.pokemon-sunmoon.com/en-us/

Stuff revealed from what I can see:

Spoiler: show

-The Pokedex is now personalised, more like the PokeNav of old, and it's possessed by a Rotom.
-Legend names and types confirmed- Solgaleo is Steel/Psychic, and Lunala is Psychic/Ghost. Abilities appear to be Multiscale and Clear Body rewritten, and their signature moves ignore abilities.
-Some character names.
-You can scan in QR codes to add Pokemon to your Pokedex and find out where they live.
-Alola confirmed to be four islands, plus an artificial one.

[TheKnightsFury]

Spoiler: show

Holy shit, rotom pokedex
Roto is going to cry tears of joy that will flood the earth.

Other than that, confirmation that sun legend will rain supreme with a much better typing. Was hoping for a new pokemon but that rotom pokedex was probably big enough of a reveal. Corocoro will hopefully give us a new pokemon or atleast a gym leader or something.

[Ironthunder]

Yeah I think the legend typings threw everyone for a loop. Especially the Sun mascot.

[phoopes]

I audibly reacted to the trailer a lot I laughed I smiled oh my goodness this was a fantastic trailer I'm so happy I'm so excited for this game aaaahhhhhh

[biggggg5]

Spoiler: show

If I can not battle with my pokedex I will be extremely dissapointed

[rotomotorz]

I get a Rotom in my Pokedex? Heck yeah!