Tldr; I used to hate eos due to a mix of its problems and how people overrate it, but now after replaying it and seeing its positives shine instead of focusing on its negatives, I now think it's pretty great.

Back then in like, what, early 2024 I would've probably still told you that pmd sky is kind of bad. I mostly hated how despite it focusing on the pokemon, it barely gave light to some of the lore for the legendaries, some of them like mew and kyogre felt less like a character and more like another super powerful tool to get.

Another thing I hated were some of the characters, I hated (and honestly still do, sorry.) Chatot. I hated how one dimensional >!darkrai was as a villain!<. And I absolutely despised the partner.

However, last week I decided to try out eos, I hadn't played it in a while. Hadn't participated in the fandom, so in a way I could do a fresh look into it and...

I like it.

I think this is really really good!

Don't get me wrong, I still have some issues with the game, chatot is still annoying, (I get his character but I want to tape his beak shut) early game the partner can be annoying, however...this time I found a lot to like.

For example, the partner themselves, I really like the arc they go through, how they go from a scared lil guy to a leader due to the player. I also like the guild and how despite being a little too samey, they're all charming in their own way.

The graphics too, the pixel art in this game is immaculate. Perhaps it's a quirk of now "getting" how difficult pixel art can be, but I seriously love how the backgrounds look in this game.

And you know what? Despite the legendaries being...still a little bit bland, I do like how the areas they're in are built to be pretty secretive, and how they're all guarding something. It feels like you're doing a lil side quest that the game doesn't tell you about.

So yeah, the games pretty good, I hope one day we can get a pmd but like, for human and pokemon, a pmd with humans in a way, that'd be cool.

I will start with every Pokedex entry for Generation 1 Pokémon, and then do every generation afterward. I will use entries from not only mainline games but also spin-offs like Pokémon Stadium. I think I will finish the analysis of Generation 1 by the end of this year.

At this moment, I have concluded the following: the vast majority of Pokedex entries are real, and only a few of them are urban legends. >!Some Pokémon fans have really forgotten that Pokémon are fictional creatures in a fictional world that can do spectacular things. !<

It recently got to my mind whatever FRLG and HGSS "killed" RBY and, especially, GSC. I mean, everyone knows Pokémon started in 1996 with RB, and not in 2004 with RFLG, but I feel most kids who get into Pokémon now, if they want to play Pokémon from its start, will play RFLG, then HGSS, then Emerald, Platinum, BW2 and so on, without playing Yellow and Crystal at all.

The Remakes were released 8 - 10 years after the originals and did not change the gaming scene as much as RB did when it was released, or even as much as GS. In the middle 2000s Pokémania was long over, Pokémon already got pretty much "normalized" by the time Crystal was released, and it definitely was so by the time gen 3 started. FRLG did not even sold a third of RB + Yellow, and HGSS only sold half of GS + Crystal. Many, many 30 - 40 men with kids and jobs, who no longer even think about Pokémon, still remember playing RBY and possibly GS in 1999 - 2001, maybe as late as 2002. Yet modern fans are all about gen 3 - 4 and, more recently, also 5. HGSS is regarded as the best title, and I even proved it with a poll sometime ago.

While it is great gen 1 and 2 stayed relevant, it is also true the Remakes have gen 3 - 4 mechanics, learnsets and game compatibility, and even a connection to Hoenn (the Ruby and the Sapphire in Sevii Islands) and Sinnoh (the Arceus event in HGSS). The Remakes are from the same Timeline of gen 3 to 5.

Indeed actual gen 1 and 2 are their own thing. They may have not aged well, but they made the history of gaming. RB also sold still more than SWSH and SV even though nowadays there are 2 billion people more, kids stop playing videogames much later than 20 years ago, many more kids play overall (if you started High School and still played videogames in the 1990's/2000's you were seen as a virgin geek), and Covid era boosted the Gaming (and Anime, and Manga) market significantly. I do not think any title will ever go over 30 millions sold copies again.

RBY metagame is also still played on simulators and RBY OU is still one of the best Tiers. Sadly GSC metagame is not as good.

Not only, IGN made a 100 best games ever list, and while Pokémon only get 1 game in the 43rd position, it was Pokémon Yellow, the best game of the first generation. It shows how impactful gen 1 games have been.

So, do you think Remakes "killed" gen 1 - 2 ?

If the answer is yes, what do you think would have happened if the concept of Remakes was never a thing ? Would Yellow and Crystal still be some of the most played and liked games, or would gen 1 and 2 have faded away ?

I believe without Remakes gen 3 would be hated and remembered as the Dexit generation, not unlike gen 8 is. Pokémon were coded in RSE but there was no way to get half of them. So DPP would have had even more gen 1-3 Pokémon, because fans would have been very vocal about the issue. Platinum would be regarded as the best game ever because it would have had over 400 Pokémon and also the Battle Frontier, even though Emerald actually invented it, but with gen 3 being hated few would care. From gen 5 onwards not much would have changed, but Yellow and Crystal would still be relevant today and would maybe even be in the TOP 5. There would likely have been less gen 1 pandering in gen 6 onwards, also.

I'm new to all aspects of Pokemon and I would like to know where to start both playing and reading more about it, I see some channels on YouTube that interest me due to their theme when talking about the designs, moves, mythology and biology of Pokemon, where can I find this content?

Hot take : I am kinda okay, that the legendary Pokémon in paldea simply sits in any location of paldea that doesn't necessary even need to have any historical sightings.

But I do think atleast unlocking them to appear could change because simple snacks is really boring.

Rather than just literally baiting them with snacks how about a little scavenger hunt of sorts where you have to find/observe changes around the area first, that implies the legendary Pokémon is here.

groudon for example perhaps by the town area nearest to the cave where it was chilling (I forgot the name of the place) you noticed how everytime you visit, the time of day is permanently day, even if the in game clock says is night, but also the surrounding are has a bunch of fire pokemon, with some pokemon that shouldn't even be in the paldean dex like slugma and macargo, and after gathering all these clues only then groudon is unlocked, which you know by hearing it's cry from a distant, implying groudon has finally gone out, and only then you can encounter.

And that goes for other legendaries.

Just little environmental stories/mini quest all over paldea that showcase their power.

Something that I'm struggling with while writing this fanmade region of mine, is that I know there's a lot about it's real world history. slavery, genocide, colonialism. So while writing this place, it felt impossible to ignore it, so I was talking to my friend about how I could possibly write these things into a Pokemon version of the place I live, and he said "Do they include our major conflicts in the rest of Pokemon?"

And that was a really good question. This is such a difficult topic to pokemon-ify. so many dark jokes can come out of talking about the real world chattel slavery and putting Pokemon into it, that it might honestly ruin some Pokemon for people. Pokemon as a tool for oppression is kind of funny but also horrifying to think about, and ALSO it doesn't fit the mood of Pokemon even REMOTELY. it's like how a lot of people reacted to Typhlosion's recent leaks (although I will not be hearing slander about these frankly tame retelling of IRL myths/legends with pokemon instead of animals.)

So, like, looking around it doesn't seem like it's something that's actually done in Pokemon. Like, Pokemon itself never really comments on real world history. It seems like the history of Pokemon is entirely fictional compared to the real world, with the closest thing only being references to real life cultures and myths. Sometimes Pokemon will be based on historical events, but not much. I mean hell, look at Unova's story-line. that has almost nothing to do with real life New York!

But I DO want a broader opinion on this.

Like a little creative tool, I feel would atleast be a fun little side hustle you can have with the app, where you can make your own, "official" Pokémon trading cards, where you use your photo, or draw with a drawing mode, or just maybe stickers you can collect in the game turn them into Pokémon cards.

You can also customise what kind of energy your card is, the name of the moves you want to have, how many HP you have, how much energy it require to attacks etc.

And you can make your own card be normal, holo, reverse holo, full art or even those fancy portal cards.

Though I could already see big issues like knowing exactly what "those" guys would make with those cards, and potential dangers like forging cards to make them look like the real deal so they can scam people on eBay, and be a legal nightmare..but I feel like they can just get away by simply saying in a PSA that uploading cards on social media or anywhere is entirely the users responsibility and don't make some in-app social media site to upload them akin to miiverse or something.

So, one of the things that people use to complain about USUM, is how Lusamine is apparently “softer” and less evil in it. So, where does this idea come from?

In SM, Lusamine is hopped up on nihelego drugs the whole game, and driven insane and obsessive towards them, while being an abusive mother. She plans to even cause an alien invasion, purely due to her obsession with space jellyfish. She is a massive narcissist and abuser.

In USUM, Lusamine has a giant hero complex, and is utterly obsessed with being the one to beat Necrozma. She becomes an abusive mother due to this. She is also a massive narcissist here too.

Whats the difference?

SM Lusamine has not pretenses of heroicness, which is likely why people think she’s softer in USUM.

USUM Lusamine has no excuse. She is just a terrible person utterly convinced of her own greatness, to the detriment of her family.

Who’s the softer portrayal, again?

anime lusamine

Basically I'm taking every unique Pokedex entry of every Pokemon and combing them into a single entry! Of course its not completely done yet, but its getting there, but I just want to show you the progress I've made so far. I made a post or two about this some time ago, but as more Pokemon are introduced, I thought it was time for an update and a revamp!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TJbpOamJTXkSzcie5EUmiV63JvODx3CA-ftg5_G9cvM/edit?usp=drivesdk

(TL;DR: The "Pokemon is an easy game for babies" energy leaving the Pokemon fandom's bodies when it's time to do discourse about the older games)

I know it sounds like I'm falling for the fallacy where I take two conflicting opinions and pretend they're coming from the same person, but "(x) wasn't hard, it was just (debunkable statement)" is a very common type of sentence I see in Pokemon game discourse.

I know a very sizeable chunk of the fandom is in agreement that the series was always baby easy, never been hard, and this is often used to shut up people who complain about the difficulty of the newer games. If you're someone who wholeheartedly believes that clearing, say, HGSS, is equally as much of a breeze as clearing SWSH, and is fully capable of maintaining that energy while you're actually playing those games in real time, I'd say own that viewpoint.

But some people will agree with that statement, but then also go "These older games have unusable movepools, their dexes are too weak to use, and the level curves force you to grind" it starts to look a little.. strange? If you think the movepools, regional dexes, and level curves or lack of party EXP aren't fun to play with at all, own that opinion! Play the games you think are fun! But at the same time I can't help but think "Didn't you all just agree these are easy games? Why do you think the easy game for babies can't be beaten with unoptimized Pokemon?" Because it is objectively true that you can beat these games with "bad" Pokemon with "bad" movepools and with absolutely zero level grinding. I mean, I can even prove it.

I know, some of you might be thinking "it's artificial difficulty". A statement like "the older games aren't difficult, they just force you to grind, it's artificial difficulty" sure sounds wise by itself, but when I can go on Youtube and find a video of someone beating Red in HGSS using only level 1 Pokemon, flat out debunking that statement, it starts to make you question how truthful statements about "fake difficulty" are. Extreme example for sure, but I also know people who can work with these "useless movepools" and "weak Johto Pokemon" just fine and clear "no level grinding" playthroughs. In fact, the amount of times I've seen fans of the older Pokemon games defend their favorites like "The Johto dex isn't bad! The movepools are usable! The level curve isn't bad! See? Here's a screenshot of me beating Red using only Pokemon in their 40's!" get hit with arguments like "You only know how to do that because you know everything about these games!" is why I no longer like referring to Pokemon as baby easy. This just doesn't sound like the way you talk about a game series that's supposed to be baby easy.

I don't want to take anyone's right to say they think the older games aren't fun or are badly designed in some aspects. It's just in my humble opinion, if you're going to say "Pokemon was always an easy baby game and never been hard" you should try to maintain that energy always and maybe stop and think "Why is it a problem I can't farm exp easily or have small movepools in a game I've claimed is baby easy?". If you still struggle and don't think the older games aren't fun, that's fine, but you're going to perform FAR less mental gymnastics if you don't make claims about how it's just "fake difficulty" or such. Honestly think some of you need to take a page from the Mario and Mega Man fandoms because they are fully capable of saying they think a game is a piece of shit and genuinely hard at the same time. When Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon get older and if it ever becomes a beloved nostalgic favorite, I guarantee the next generation of newer fans wanting to defend their favorite newer games will have an easy time making pushback arguments about how they are "artificially difficult and unfair" that sound all smart on the surface, just like how fans of the newer games do right now with pre-XY Pokemon.

The stakes of grinding are way higher than just hundos now.

It used to be that, if you were a hardcore player you could do a large number of raids during an event and maybe get a hundo, or a shiny, or a shundo if you were insanely lucky.

But now Pokémon GO has a lot of mons that are probably not returning (costume mons), and one-time encounters (Zygarde, mythicals), as well as things like the Galarian birds which are just inconveniently rare.

The other problem is dynamax and gigantamax Pokémon. People are barely getting GMaxes, because Niantic chose to alienate the player base and try to scam more over having actual community gameplay, so you can only do them locally, they're hard to take down, hard to catch, AND the IV floor is too low meaning that you probably won't get one worth investing in anyway.

Realistically, if you have like an 11/13/12 GMax, are you going to max that out and upgrade it? HELL nah, complete waste of resources.
Who's actually investing in their one Zygarde? You only get one, if It's not a hundo It's pointless wasting stardust, candy and Zygarde cells.

So PoGo needs two things from the main series. Max Soup and Bottle Caps.

I mean firstly the Max Particle thing needs to be fixed, given that you can only get a pitiful and useless amount per day, and everything to do with max battles takes way too many particles, so just lift the limit on daily particles for starters.
Secondly, make it so you can spend 1,000 particles to give any Pokémon you have the Dynamax factor, and 1k on any DMax Pokémon to make it GMax, meaning 2k particles in total.
I'd 100% grind all that to give my maxed out 4* Charizard, Venusaur and Blastoise the ability to GMax.

The other thing, Bottle Caps. Standard silver caps, to raise one chosen IV by +1. I wouldn't have it overpowered, I'd make it so a single silver cap has like a 10% chance of dropping after a raid, have one in the occasional premium box, research rewards etc.
It'd take getting like 7 of them to get my one Zygarde in this scenario. I'd use one on the 14/15/15 Charcadet I hatched the other day, I'd use one on each of my 98% shinies.
If it's a rare raid drop, and an occasional premium reward/box purchase, It'd take me absolutely ages to grind enough to max out everything I want.
It'd also incentivise raiding and buying stuff.
It isn't more pay to win than the game already is so why not do something useful with it.

Max Soup was a competitive necessity in SwSh, Bottle Caps have been integral since Gen 7, and I'm not even calling for the inclusion of Gold Bottle Caps.

Like genuinely there's literally zero downside to allowing players to actually make the Pokémon they have more usable.

If this looks familiar, it's because I asked a similar question about Gen 5 a few months back. I will admit, that I think I was a little harsh in my critiques and that I do actually enjoy playing Gen 5 a moderate amount. Gen 4 on the other hand, I genuinely despise.

I've never played Diamond/Pearl, but have played through Platinum 2.5 times (got halfway before getting stuck as a kid before resetting later and playing twice over 5-7 years or so). I won't be touching HGSS on this post since most of my questions are aimed at Platinum.

The most succinct way I can describe the game is that it feels like it has 20 hours of content stretched over 40+ hours of gameplay which leads to a watered-down, boring, and a bland experience. Most of my other complaints stem from that, so I will list them below.

-The dex is atrocious with so many teams ending up identical because of how much of the dex is unobtainable in single player (trade evolutions, exclusives, etc.) or unusable garbage (Lumineon, Cherrim, Carnivine, etc.) Not to mention that the typings are seriously unbalanced. Everybody knows the joke about only 2 fire types, but look up electric, rock, ice, ghost, dragon, and dark (mostly for Pearl). Platinum fixed this somewhat by mostly adding evolutions that should have already been in the game, but 210 is still way too small for me to want to do repeated playthroughs, especially when I don't want to use any of the game's copious legendaries.

-The game has way too much grinding. Every time I reach the Elite 4, I groan when I realize that I have at least three hours of unavoidable grinding. Each gym leader also having random spikes (since they have an ace with a +100 BST advantage over you) in difficulty means that you do a lot of grinding throughout the game on the most recent route just to not get curb stomped.

-The pacing is way too slow. Yeah, I know that "Gen 4 slow" jokes are overdone, but it's true. Movement is slow, battles are slow, animations are slow, even a lot of the pokemon are slow. I know that the slower battles make for more "tension" but there is no tension in waiting 30 seconds for my Empoleon to OHKO some Hiker's Graveler before walking 10 feet to fight the next hiker.

-The Sinnoh region is atrocious. This matches a bit with the above point on slowness. Mt. Coronet is a cool idea, but absolutely awfully implemented. Shellos/Gastrodon are the only things affected by the region being effectively split in half by this impermeable mountain. Each cave is a nightmare to traverse without tonnes of repels (which also take way too long to apply) and each one is filled to the brim with mandatory HMs that force you to either lug around slaves or neuter the viability of both your team selection and individual members by forcing crap like Rock Smash or Rock Climb on them. The marshy areas are atrocious and unfun. The safari zone was so terribly implemented that they just snipped it from the series. The snowy north is also a nightmare to get through. Surfing is just as bad...

-The plot is just a less interesting version of Ruby and Sapphire. And also way more poorly explained. Wow! Obvious bad guy uses box legendary to do bad guy things! Except this one wants to remove the world of spirit?? And the devs just decided to leave in a book about people shagging pokemon... I don't hate the concept of the Sinnoh plot since Legends Arceus delivered a fantastic one, but baseline Sinnoh is just atrocious.

Frankly, the most condemning thing I have against the game is that when I finally beat the elite 4 and waited for the (slow) credits to finally finish, my only thought was "I'm so glad that's over." It took me until my second complete playthrough to even realize there was a postgame (and it was one that I also dislike). The main game is pretty bad if you force a player to go through 20-40 hours of sludge to get them to a barely decent part. I'll condense all of my postgame thoughts below.

-Battle Frontier is lame and I don't care that they won't bring it back. The only good facility is the battle factory which lets you play with all sorts of rare pokemon that are otherwise unobtainable. Every other one is fun for about an hour tops before I never want to touch it again. A lot of this comes down to basically not being able to breed or obtain good pokemon (EVs, IVs, Nature, Egg Moves...) without wasting hours upon hours of my life just to get haxxed out.

-Stark Mountain is the lamest quest ever. The "companion" system already wore thin on me because you often get into double battles where your partner's crappy pokemon either does nothing or gets knocked out instantly, so you're forced to fight a 2 vs 1 or worse. But this one also forces you to navigate a giant cave (see above) with HMs (see above) very slowly (see above). Just so that you can watch a minute-long cutscene of Galaxy admin characters that I don't care about just telling us that they are quitting. Then you walk out and walk all the way back through to catch a Heatran.

-The personal mansion is just grinding the elite 4 to get money. You can't customize anything. You can't really invite your favorite people. It doesn't affect the gameplay at all. You just get a soulless building on the corner of a soulless island that has the occasionally gym leader standing lifelessly in the corner.

-Collecting all of the Arceus plates and rebattling gym leaders in the cantina after stark mountain is actually pretty cool and I enjoyed it. Would have liked some in-game way to deduce where the plates are, but it's still fun while using an online guide. I also like being able to fairly easily get Level 90+ Magikarps to make everything less tedious.

That's all I have. Sorry for the long post, but my one about Gen 5 was very succinct and I ended up needing to clarify a lot of things on a lot of individual comment threads. I still can clarify things if you want, but being more descriptive in the post also probably helps. The last thing I have to say is that I have no desire to ever play through Platinum again, I don't want to buy BDSP, and I'm not sure if I would play through standard Diamond or Pearl even if someone was willing to pay me to beat it.

This thread will be a place for basic questions that don't contribute to active discussion. Before asking a question, please check Google or resources such as Serebii or Bulbapedia to see if they will answer it. If not, then feel free to post your question here for people to answer. Basic questions outside of this thread will be removed. This thread will be replaced with a fresh one every so often, so please use the most recent one.

Useful Links:

Serebii

Bulbapedia

Smogon

Official Pokémon Website

Multireddit of various Pokémon subs

If you use cheats to catch wild Pokémon (I think those not from Kanto) in FireRed/LeafGreen, then the old lady in Celadon Mansion won't give you the tea that you can later give to the guards, and thus you can't enter Saffron City.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Most legendary/mythical Pokémon can be obtained in one of a few ways:

• Online distribution
• They are hidden in a cave
• They are given to the player at some point in the story

The Regi trio, however, has a more intriguing way to obtain them—players have to solve convoluted puzzles.

I have a one idea: legendary Pokémon can be found in locations that have a small chance of appearing. Think of it like Mirage Island.

In the Pokémon anime, if a Gym Leader has 3 Pokémon, then the challenger can only use 3 Pokémon. Do you think this mechanic should also be in the games? This rule is currently only in the Battle Frontier and other battle facilities.

Yeah I know, TPC is currently doing well right now playing safe, if anything playing safe is also seems to be a growing net positive for them every year.

But is also because they have so much money they could atleast have some off wall ideas with it, beyond just being the most evergreen products possible for the past half decade.

And it doesn't need to be BIG risk, like I'm not asking gamefreak to make a Pokémon game have a budget of a billion dollars with a 10 year development cycle or suddenly plan out a series of Pokémon cinematic universe movies with Robert Downey JR playing red.

Just explore ideas TPC/Pokémon itself never done before the past decade ever since, like Nintendo randomly decide to just make an alarm clock

Maybe publish some smaller Pokémon game projects specifically for consoles, and not mobile that you can sell for 20/30 USD on the eshop, or maybe have a few more official Pokémon comics by studios like IDW or DC, if not an indie game, let another AAA studio like square Enix have a shot at a Pokémon project.

It's fine that Pokémon want's to stay very evergreen as their primary way of making money, but is also because you have this much money, and a way too popular IP they could have a little fun with it.

So, Zeraora is a mythical Pokemon, but what makes it special?

Celebi is the time traveling guardian of the forest, Jirachi grants wishes even Meloetta is the muse of many songs and dances.

But what about Zeraora? It..... moves really fast and has powerful electric claws? Okay? What else?

It doesn't have electric organs, so it has to absorb it from other sources? Yeah, when I ask what made it "special" I didn't mean "disabled", I meant mythical.

So, what does Zeraora do that makes it Mythical?

Everyone seems to agree that single-typed Pokémon are a disappointment, not only in terms of theming, like Luxray or Golduck, but also in gameplay, seeing as their offense is so nerfed compared to dual-typed Pokémon. Has anyone ever suggested increasing their STAB as a compromise? It seems like such an obvious fix to me.

Decided to stick to leveling up 4 Pokemon for battling in the maingame & postgame rather than 6 with the rest of the slots for HM slaves, and the overall experience is much more manageable than having 6 underleved and/or unevolved Pokemon.

To be fair as soon as you get the ability to surf after beating Morty there are many trainers you can battle in Johto before challenging any of the Gyms in-between Morty and Clair, but even with that in mind there just isn't enough EXP to go around for raising a full team of 6 in the maingame & postgame. Once you've exhausted the available trainer battles in the overworld that leaves trainer / gym leader rematches using the Pokegear and grinding out both the Johto & post Natdex Elite 4 challenges. Thankfully the Elite 4 challenge does get boosted levels after the first round like with FRLG and Platinum which helps with grinding in the postgame, but that aside your only real option for grinding that's provided in the game is the Pokegear for trainer & gym leader rematches, and when compared to options provided by other games such as the VS. Seeker and PokeNav's Trainer Eye's / Match Call feature it simply falls short.

I can appreciate GameFreak trying to push the novelty of daily/weekly events with the Day/Night cycle as it's intended enhance both the immersions & atmosphere on paper, but oftentimes ends up being cumbersome & obstructive in practice; the VS. Seeker and PokeNav are simply a much more intuitive & convenient option for rematching trainers & gym leaders in-game as you don't need to actively keep track of who can be rematched to begin with and what specific day & time to call them in order to initiate a rematch, and Platinum has the Battleground cafe in the Survival Area for rematching both the Gym Leaders & companion characters you meet throughout the game. With the VS. Seeker you simply use it in the overworld until you fine trainers to battle, and with the PokeNav not only will you oftentimes receive call from trainers ready to battle again, but a "Pokeball" notification marker will appear next to their name in the PokeNav when they are ready for a rematch. With the Pokegear in HGSS not only do you rarely receive calls from trainers letting you know you can battle them again, but there is no indication whatsoever within the PokeNav in-game letting you know when a trainer can be called for a rematch; as such you have no choice but to actively reference community resources like Serebii in order to keep track of the Daily/Weekly events in HGSS as there aren't enough in-game hints or notifications to allow the trainers to seamlessly take advantage of these features. That isn't to say that community resources shouldn't be used as the community aspect is core to the Pokemon experience (catching/trading/battling) and sharing information is how many infamous rumors like Mew under the truck started, but if there are features in-game that require you to constantly fall back on community notes in order to even be able to feasibly us them then that is a problem.

Lately I’ve been listening to the Hidden Power Podcast and they were talking about what makes a legends game a legends game. Now we don’t have multiple games to look at a pattern so people think many things. People say it’s the gameplay mechanics, the open world-ness, or the time frame. I think what truly makes a legends game is that you are a previous player character.

In PLA, you are the player character from DP. You get pulled from your current time and get pulled into “the past”. Whether that is the same timeline or not it doesn’t matter for the sake of this discussion. In GSC/HGSS you hear about red, your precious character, and eventually find him on Mt Silver. In BW2 no one knows what happens to Hilbert and Hilda. Not even the mom knows where they are. So from what we can see most player characters disappear and become “legends”.

I think what makes a legends game is that you play as a previous player character. You yourself play as a person who became a legend in their own time.

One time, I experienced a strange glitch in Pokémon Emerald. I don't know if anyone else has experienced this.

A few years ago, I played Pokémon Emerald on an emulator using VGBA and a regular, non-modified ROM of Emerald. My starter was Torchic. I was playing with some cheats. I don't know which exactly, but the standard cheats I used back in the day were: every Poké Ball, every item, max money, and catching any Pokémon I wanted in the grass.

This happened when I was around Petalburg City, before the first gym. I got a Seedot (I don't remember if I got it through a trade with an NPC or if I caught it using cheats). I'm not sure if I used cheats to change its ability and/or nature.

The strange thing that happened was this: Torchic and Seedot didn’t listen to me, like they were traded Pokémon or cheated Deoxys or Mew. I had a high enough level, so Seedot wasn't overleveled.

TCG Pocket has done a cool thing, by essentially being a simplified Hearthstone instead of a simplified Magic The Gathering.

But, this also blows open the door of potential.

Pokémon TCG on the GameBoy also had new cards just for the game, and TCG Pocket took that design philosophy a step further, so what I'm thinking is.
Pokémon TCG RPG on Switch 2.

Essentially, similar to TCG GB, but using the Pocket play format.
Whether It'd also include Genetic Apex, or have its own original set, I don't know. But I feel like maybe the reason we haven't seen another TCG RPG since that Japan only Team Rocket one is because there are kinda too many cards for it?
But if it launches with Genetic Apex and a new expansion I think that'd be fine.

ShadowVerse did literally exactly that, It's a CCG in its own right, but also had an RPG on the Switch. And since New Pokémon Snap showed us that they're not afraid to revive dead spin-offs, I think this would be a great one to do next.

But despite the last Mystery Dungeon game being on 3DS I kinda want a Mystery Dungeon revival first... Or Ranger... Or canonizing Orre into the main series...

Anyway, do you reckon a new TCG RPG using Pocket as a base is likely?

genuinely curious about this. how come theyre trainers yet you dont start till youre older??

Something I've thought about for a while. FR/LG were practically a necessity to stop Game Freak from getting massive backlash for locking people out of half the dex, and as a result remakes became a sort of expectance going forwards for the series.

If the Time Capsule feature continued uninterrupted, would FR/LG have been delayed signficantly in time of release? Maybe shifted scope (eg. remakes became something for home consoles with much more detail and content than the handheld releases as a reimagining of the original games)? Not come out at all?

What about Dexit? Maybe Game Freak would have been discouraged from carrying it out due to the fact that people would've been transferring their original Pokémon up from Red/Green all the way to Sword/Shield, and cutting that tradition of being able to take your partner to a new region and go through all the side game content with it would result in even bigger fan backlash than it did in reality?

Hell, even on a smaller scale, assuming the Time Capsule stayed two-way working like it did going from Gen 2 to 1: how would it retroactively affect certain games' competitive scenes or individual Pokémon? Would Flareon be slightly less garbage in Gen 4 competitive with access to Flare Blitz? Would No Guard Machamp still exist given its access to Fissure in Gen 1? Stuff like that.

There’s something about certain Pokémon glitches and oddities that feels disturbing, almost like the uncanny valley effect. For example, glitches like MissingNo. or the Mew glitch feel like the player shouldn’t be doing this—like looking at something forbidden.

There is a chance that if a player transfers MissingNo. from Generation 1 to Generation 2, it will turn into a Generation 2 Pokémon.

Then there are cases like the reference to Munna in Pokémon Red and Blue (1996), where an NPC describes wanting a "pink Pokémon with floral patterns." This perfectly matches Munna, which wasn’t introduced until Generation 5 in 2010. I read that the designer of Munna didn’t plan this as a reference, which makes it even stranger.

Another example is Alolan Exeggutor from Generation 7 (2016), which has a long neck and lives in a tropical region. In 1997, there was a Japanese Jungle booster box depicting a long-necked Exeggutor in a tropical setting, aligning perfectly with the Alolan form. This feels like it wasn’t part of this reality but somehow exists.

The moment Noivern was revealed during the XY hype cycle it became a favourite. No its in-battle model has never done its coolness justice and it suffers from having never had a 2D sprite, so I've never seen a game show its personality. But regardless, I love this thing. First thing I did when XY came out was find out where to get one and SECURE IT on my end-game team.

Then, I discovered, it's absolute garbage.

How can this happen? It's a late game dragon. No it's not a psuedo, but neither are Kingdra, Haxorus, Hydrapple or Archaludon and they're sick.

This is criminal, but I've also always thought... How could it be better?
Mainly, stats and abilities. Its stats are average and all its abilities suck. So I brainstormed what an improved Noivern looks like.

Currently its stats are 85/70/80/97/80/123 which is pitiful.
Buff it to 85/100/85/120/85/130 or thereabouts. Special attacker with mixed attacker potential. I mean this guy gets Dragon Dance but literally has zero use for it. Who's making a physical build for Noivern? Literally no one right now.
If it had a usable Attack stat it could make use out of Dragon Claw and Shadow Claw. Also it doesn't get Crunch, so give it Crunch too.
But its main use is obviously in its special attack movepool. I mean Dragon Pulse, Boomburst, Shadow Ball, Heat Wave, none of these are bad moves. All its missing now is an ability.

Let's invent a new one. I haven't named it, could be called Amplify or something.
Anyway this new ability applies STAB to sound based moves. I was thinking it breaks through Soundproof because it would go with the theme of a sound boosting ability belonging to a DRAGON WITH SPEAKERS FOR EARS but that might be a bit too op.
But, now Boomburst and Hyper Voice would be more viable for it, Psychic Noise too, and I did think maybe Noivern deserves a sound based damaging Dragon move, but if it has an ability that gives it sound STAB I don't think It's needed. Even though It's weird to me that Kommo-o got that and Noivern didn't.

Anyway, that's my pitch. Give it stats on par with its non-psuedo lategame Dragon peers, and an ability that makes its large number of Normal type moves a lot more useful.
Personally, I'd use this Noivern with a Ghost type as its partner so it could Boomburst to its heart's content.

My examples

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVZxVGvoMNo

Or this multi part theory https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbwaIC_00M7TV-owPcQlna9R_UFYX0I66

Which Pokémon has been given the least amount of attention or special care from TPC? That means no first partner or legendary Pokémon, no Megas, no Dynamax forms, no regional forms, no babies or post-debut-gen evolutions, as little appearance in media as possible, only regular encounters (no events or gifts), no buffs, no signature moves or abilities etc.

I was going to say Glameow, as it has practically been on hiatus since it's debut gen in both the main games and the anime, but then I realised that they did something weird with its ears in Gen VI before realising how stupid it looked and reverting it back in SuMo, indicating that some amount of shilling was attempted, and the fact that it was exclusive to Pearl, making it a selling point in itself, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.