#but this is how Cursed Pikachu would look if he ever evolved

[crystalelemental]

In anticipation of Scarlet and Violet, I think now’s a great time to update the overall opinions on games within the series.  So I made a tier list that, I imagine, no one is surprised about.  Though who knows, maybe some of you are surprised.  I was.  This is the worst bell curse my opinions have ever produced.

Overall, this is an assessment of personal enjoyment.  I want to call it quality too, and will talk about my perception of quality, but let’s be real: it’s personal enjoyment.  As such, some of the placements are more based around the questions “Would I intentionally pick this up again?” and “Would I enjoy playing it again?”  There are extra aspects that go into those questions, but I’ll address those as I bring up the games.

Speaking of, in the interest of avoiding just going in a logical order, I’m going to go by generation, because that’s the order I made the list in.  Which means initially, Gens 1 and 2 largely fell in C until opinions started happening and stuff got moved.  And I think it’s more interesting to talk that process of why.  Also note, I only put one of each game cluster up, choosing based on which game I tended to gravitate toward for the cluster.

GEN 1

Red/Blue (D2).  The games that started the franchise, and are universally beloved.  Except, notoriously, by me.  Listen, I get that there’s nostalgia, but that’s all there is anymore.  Red and Blue were great for their time, but the instant we stepped into Gen 2 it became apparent how much better we could have it.  Red and Blue are not games that I go back to...almost ever.  Very, very rarely do I think about just making a fun run through, and almost every time it’s because I went traveling somewhere and forgot to bring the physical carts for other games, but Red/Blue are downloaded on the 3DS.  It’s just not that much fun anymore.  Inventory space limitations beyond reason, the nightmares of Wrap/Rage, no rebattling any kind of trainer with fairly low level wild Pokemon that made catching up difficult, the lack of almost anything interesting going on because you had like five non-Normal attacks in the game.  It’s a fine start, but it’s the kind of start that legitimately should’ve been left in the past as something that started the series, but isn’t a major focus.

Yellow (D4).  Okay look.  I know it’s a generally accepted rule that the third game in the series is the better option, and that Yellow is included.  I do not like Yellow as much.  These are mostly petty reasons, but they bug me.  The most “legitimate” is lack of reasonable access to Missingno.  Sometimes, Red/Blue entices because of the raw clownshoes of Missingno’s presence.  Without that, Yellow doesn’t feel as ridiculous of a time, which is a drawback.  Second, I don’t love that I have to keep Pikachu around.  I like Raichu, but I never liked Pikachu.  It was so bad that, as a kid, I’d get my cousin’s Red and trade Pikachu to it, evolve it, and send it back.  I do not want Pikachu on my team, unless it’s waiting to be Raichu.  Which leads into the big, incredibly petty complaint: this game is just playing as Ash.  No, really, look at it.  The means of acquiring the three starters is like...the exact method the anime shows up.  Koga has Venomoth line only because that’s what he uses in the anime.  Yellow is PokeAni Season 1 The Game, and while I liked the show as a kid, I never liked Ash enough to ever want to play as him.  Not that the distinction ever sunk in as a kid, but it bothers me more over time.  I also have gone from “Oh cool, you get all the starters” to “that feels kinda cheap, and why are there still version exclusives if we’re getting rid of that requirement?”  I dunno.  I like Red/Blue better.

GEN 2

Silver/Gold (B2) - I feel like when quality is discussed, often people will defer to “Pokemon is a kid’s game, they made it for kids.”  Which is fair, but also, this came out when I was like ten, and even then I could feel the difference.  Everything that made Gen 1 clunky was gone, and Johto remains one of my favorite regions.  It’s a cool place!  Silver legitimately felt like a more exciting experience, with great new Pokemon and old faces alike.  Frankly, it’d be higher if it weren’t for Crystal and the remakes, which...kinda make these games far less enticing to pick up.  That said, I have to bring up the biggest issue of all things Johto.  Wild encounter levels are pitifully low, rebattling trainers still isn’t much of a thing, and levels scale really fast in some places.  In some ways, it has a legitimately worse version of Gen 1′s problem with this.  While completely subjective, I feel like the tradeoff was that Gen 2 felt bigger.  I mean...it honestly was because of the dual-region thing, but even just Johto felt bigger than just Kanto, with more side events like the Bug Catching Contest and trying to track the Legendary Beasts, or exploring optional caverns like Mt. Mortar.  Johto felt a bit more exploratory, and because of stat experience, you never actually fell too far behind despite staying lower level, making it feel a lot more like you’re the underdog trainer fighting stronger opponents and winning with your friends.  The exception’s the Red fight, which is bad, but Gen 2 never bothered me as much as Gen 1 despite having similar issues.

Crystal (A5) - My beloved.  Crystal was the first game I legitimately fell in love with.  I still have incredibly fond memories of the game.  Which is fascinating because I don’t actually think all that much changed between GS and C.  The biggest thing was honestly Pokemon placement.  Early access to Poliwag, Teddiursa, and Phanpy was neat, reminiscent of Yellow adding Mankey and the Nidorans before Brock.  I...really couldn’t tell you much else, though.  This is really more a situation where I don’t think it’s legitimately better in every way, I just like it better in every way, and always pick it up over Gold or Silver.  And sometimes over HGSS.

GEN 3

Ruby/Sapphire (C1) - When this game first came out, I...did not love it.  In a weird way, I think this game really indicated what the fallout of Dexit was going to be.  All my old Pokemon couldn’t be transferred, and I hated it.  I didn’t have any of my Eevees.  I couldn’t trade my Mewtwo.  So much was just gone in the generational shift.  While I’ve since gotten over this, and come to actually appreciate when games push their new dex, Gen 3 remains pretty mid-tier for me.  Well.  The originals, anyway.  Ruby and Sapphire never quite caught on with me, and Hoenn remains one of my less favorite regions on the whole.  I could not tell you why.  I have no especially negative opinions about it, it’s just hard for me to like Hoenn.  I do think part of it is the Eternal Surfing, and the fact that Magma and Aqua remain the dumbest teams.  Because otherwise...Hoenn has a great dex, some great gym leader designs and concepts, Steven Stone is there.  I shouldn’t be as lukewarm on it as I am.  But, here we are.  As for why C-tier, it’s because I have not ever thought about picking up Ruby or Sapphire.  The reason should be obvious.

Emerald (S2) - Until recently, I would’ve lumped Emerald in with Ruby and Sapphire.  It was actually a recent playthrough that really got me invested, to the point I think it has legitimate claim to being the best game in the series.  I argue this due to challenge.  When challenge is discussed in Pokemon, I feel like it’s pretty universally in terms of absurd, tedious challenge that is honestly just bad game design.  Think about things like how Gen 7 and BDSP addressed concerns around difficulty, and produced something that lacks any sense of fun.  “Challenge” is ill defined, subjective, and most problematic, not synonymous with good game design.  Sure, you can make foes with capped EVs, IVs, and positive natures, but is it fun for the player to have to stop, breed something with perfect IVs, and farm millions of dollars 20k at a time over days to catch up?  No.  No, that’s horrid.  There are other ways to go about this, and Emerald goes about it the right way. Emerald introduced Boosting moves in a big way, incorporating Bulk Up, Calm Mind, and Dragon Dance as the big names.  And as a result, they anticipated everyone would play around with them a bit, and built battles that aim to counter this strategic play.  Almost every fight offers counterplay to setup, be it Winona’s Perish Song on Swablu, Sidney’s Sand Attack on Intimidate Mightyena, Glacia’s Body Slam paralysis on Sealeo, Wallace’s Water Spout Wailord, all the way up to Steven Stone’s Toxic and Spikes on Skarmory.  The game introduced strategies that the player could try out, and intelligently built its battles around them, being able to demonstrate responses.  This is the kind of direction that I think the series needed to go, building challenges that were more strategic. Unfortunately, it didn’t go that way, because Emerald failed its mission by  proving the most effective way to win was just four coverage moves.  Just hit them and most of your opponent’s counterplay is irrelevant.  It’s why I can’t accept it as top dog, despite having some really fantastic concepts behind it.  I love this game, it’s not easily among the favorites, but if it had just gone a little further with its teambuilding it could’ve been perfect.

FRLG (A4) - I mentioned Gen 2 was my youthful realization of what quality of life improvement was?  FRLG was my realization of what graphical improvement was.  I kinda started console games around OoT, I missed the major jump.  But seeing the old beep boop Pokemon game in this kind of color, with this much improvement to the sprite work, honestly dazzled me.  It was such an improvement.  And if I’m going to get nostalgia about Kanto, this is where it happens.  This game exclusively.  FRLG has a lot that fixes the original Gen 1, to the point I consider it the only perfect remake.  Every mechanical issue is gone.  The Vs Seeker lets you battle trainers again, easing the issue of being massively under-leveled.  The Sevii Islands added a lot of meat to the game.  FRLG is fantastic.

GEN 4

Diamond/Pearl (C2) - I will be honest.  These are the only games I haven’t had access to a physical copy for.  My cousin stole my Diamond ages ago and I never got it back.  I uh.  I don’t remember much specific.  But I remember not liking them quite as much, and thus not liking Gen 4 quite as much, until...

Platinum (S1) - Platinum is still my pick for the best game in the series.  I will admit to serious flaws.  Despite Emerald’s strategic approach, Platinum goes in the exact opposite direction, locking entire strategies behind the BP shop for no reason other than removing boosting and Toxic/Paralysis from any equation.  This game wants you to hit each other with sticks and nothing more.  Jokes on them, because movepools are now big enough, and technical applications wide enough, that you can do some fun things with the game.  This is where I feel like things actually worked.  In Emerald, trying to Leech Seed stall usually gets you killed, because of how well your opponent can counter you.  But Platinum doesn’t have the same aggression toward setup leads.  This is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, strategy is much more effective in Platinum.  On the other, so are setup sweepers, who can absolutely body most of the game.  Just about any kind of setup can turn Cynthia’s final battle into a pretty easy time.  I’ve absolutely 6-0′d her team because of how easy it is to set up on Spiritomb. What I think is nice about Platinum, though, is that it will showcase strategies through your opponents as well.  Emerald didn’t do a whole lot of cohesive strategy, so much as just having strong anti-leads.  Platinum is where you get team structures like Gardenia, who can set Reflect to block Bird Sweep, followed into Cherrim’s Leech Seed to obliterate Bronzor stall.  Or where you get Candice, whose Hail-based shenanigans means she can potentially win any matchup just by having RNG work in her favor a bit, and thus pushing players to use their own weather to respond.  The game isn’t quite perfect about it, but Platinum feels like another attempt to have legitimate team cohesion and strategy behind it, which makes it more engaging.  It’s also like...the only game where I’ve never been able to handle the final fight 15-20 levels below them.  I’m always within like 5-10 levels of Cynthia.  Part of this is difficulty, but part of it is what I talked about with Emerald: better game design.  Having to go from facing level 62 to level 88 is not a fun nor reasonable challenge.  The only solution is tedious grinding, or having gotten really good at counterpicking the final battle.  Cynthia always feels so close in level because the content of Platinum is so dense that being under-leveled is a choice.  There’s an extra thing to do constantly, and the introduction of open areas with an exploration partner who heals you was a brilliant way to allow players to farm a few levels without running back and forth to the Pokemon Center.  Even post-game, you have the entire island to explore.  Platinum is wonderfully content-rich, well-balanced, and by far my favorite in the series. 

HGSS (A2) - HGSS is an objective improvement over GS, but arguably C.  I say this on one technicality: all the cool early access Pokemon in Crystal aren’t there is HGSS.  I don’t agree with it.  But it’s hard to deny how much more HGSS has.  The Safari Zone offering access to the Kanto-exclusive new Pokemon was a delight, and added more territory to explore to help close level gaps.  Kanto itself felt a bit more full, so it wasn’t quite as empty a sandbox as it was in the original games.  They kept the Suicune subplot, which is great except the part where Suicune has to wait until after your first run of the league.  Speaking of, the improvement of the league in a rematch helps bridge the gap between Blue and Red’s fights.  You’re not as required to experience a 26 level jump in one go.  Though you’re still likely to be massively under-leveled.  There’s also the questionable choice of Voltorb Flip.  Personally...I liked it better.  I could never do slots, but I’m good at Voltorb Flip.  As another small addition, the Kimono Girls were given tremendous significance, which I loved, and we got a bit more of the lore of the region.  So with all this praise, why not S-tier? It still suffers from the same thing every Johto game does.  Progression is slow, grinding practically required, levels too low to gain meaningful experience, etc etc.  I’d argue it’s worse here, because stat experience was a free boost to everything that could legitimately close every statistical gap despite being 20 levels under.  Here, you get EVs, which are outright impossible to control for, and therefore can’t offer the same cushioning from being constantly under-leveled.  As a result, it can legitimately feel more stacked against you.  Some people like that.  They’re lunatics.

GEN 5

Black/White (S3) - Black and White has the best story in the series.  I don’t feel that’s controversial.  It also did the best thing ever by completely cutting off previous Pokemon, and making you operate only with the new stuff.  That one might be controversial, but I loved it.  Reusable TMs saved a ton of effort, but I will admit to sometimes missing the strategy of where to allocate those resources.  The league being interrupted by the villain team and N’s rise is way more interesting a shakeup to the Pokemon Formula than anything Gen 7 tried to do.  Gen 5 has some of the best stuff the series has done, and yes, that includes Garbodor.  So why below Emerald and Platinum? Black and White was a bit of a step back to me when it comes to strategy.  Nothing stands out like a Candice fight, and no one’s got a particularly strong anti-lead like Emerald to suggest serious planning went into it.  A lot of Gen 5 feels more like “We’re going to hit you with a big stick.”  It also has a little bit of a Gen 2 problem, thanks to scaled experience.  Levels are not intrinsically too low, but because experience is scaled lower when you’re above an opponent’s level, grinding is effectively impossible...unless you Audino farm, which is the single most tedious means of gaining EXP the series has ever produced.  Because of this, you’re constantly underleveled against opponents who are really strong, and now have nigh-endless coverage options by this point in the series, and all your best strategic responses like boosting moves are TM locked to post-game.  BW is legitimately just less fun to play than those games.  Even as fantastic as it is, Gen 5 is a generation that takes a little building up to.  I have trouble just picking up and playing without at least some level of “Yeah, this is what I want over Platinum/Emerald/HGSS.”  But when I want soemthing in Gen 5?  Man, this is the one.

Black/White2 (A3) - A rare case of the continuation being worse.  Not significantly worse, I think it does some interesting stuff in its approach to Team Plasma’s division between those who were in it for themselves, and those who earnestly believed in the mission.  But I also think...BW2 incorporating other regions’ Pokemon was for the worse?  I liked being left with just the new region.  They don’t do anything too interesting with the league this time around.  Iris is bizarrely absent most of the game, despite having the regional champion be a big deal in like...every other generation.  There’s an odd amount of backtracking at times as you navigate the region, making it feel a little more tedious.  And it also keeps a lot of the flaws of BW1, notably the EXP scaling and Audino thing.  To make matters worse, it also has Hugh, the worst rival.  Going from Bianca and Cheren, two of the best, to the worst in the series, is a rough transition.  I’m also going to concede, I never really liked Colress.  I could never get a read on him or what his deal was. Still, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t add some of the best side features of any game.  PokeStar Studios blew my mind the first time though, it was such a cool and creative idea.  Pokemon World Tournament bringing in nearly every face from the series was super cool, and having matchups against other gym leaders along their favored typing was everything my aspiring monotype heart could’ve asked for.  And nothing about the game was specifically bad, it just didn’t live up to BW1, in my book.

GEN 6

XY (B3) - I feel like this may be too generous, but I’m sticking with it.  XY is not great.  It is absolutely riddled with problems.  EXP All trivializes the game, and even without it, the game’s surprisingly easy.  Mega Evolutions were so cool, but then you don’t have access to almost anything until post-game.  The region is loaded with options, but this always gave me more choice paralysis than excitement about options.  I never know what to run, and get frustrated with the selection process by like...Parfum Palace.  There’s also just not much attention given to the characters, which feels incredibly odd after Gen 5′s fantastic emphasis on character and story.  Speaking of story, Team Flare is still one of the least coherent villain organizations, with Lysandre being so transparently the villain from the moment you meet him that no one has ever reported being fooled.  Diantha remains mysteriously absent throughout the game, much like Iris, resulting in her having almost no lasting impression.  So why is it B? In part, the fact that I keep picking it up.  XY isn’t great, but it’s kinda like the gaming equivalent of having a craving for McDonalds.  It’s not good for me, but sometimes it’s what the heart wants.  It’s a pretty simple game, with a lot of favorites to work with, and if I can just push through the early-game choice paralysis, it does tend to result in a fairly fun experience.  Not like the other generations.  But it’s at least something.  Which feels appropriate for B.  Something I’d intentionally pick up, but not be in the mood for generally.

ORAS (B1) - Speaking of which, the other Gen 6 introduction is also B-tier.  ORAS is inferior to Emerald, I don’t think that’s controversial.  But I will admit to still liking ORAS, in spite of things.  Delta Episode is fun.  Mauville is a nightmare in this state, I can’t find anything.  Aron can’t be caught until later.  But we get the first hints of no HMs with the Latis flying you around.  I actually like the designs a lot better.  Except Wallace, which is worse.  This is also the only one I think I’d be willing to argue one version is better, and it’s Alpha Sapphire.  Given their new presentation, there is something endlessly funny about frat boy Archie constantly outsmarting Hypernerd Maxie at every turn.

GEN 7

Sun/Moon (D3) - Sun and Moon is, similar to Gen 5, a generation where the first thing brought up is story.  And yes, SuMo has a great story.  For the Aether Family and literally no one else.  No one else in this game matters.  They get a quick introduction and are removed.  You don’t even battle the trial captains, just the totem Pokemon; they are completely removed from relevance.  Even characters you’d think would have a lot going on due to proximity, like Wicke, don’t.  SuMo just doesn’t feel like it matters much.  Though I will give props for the post-game with Anabel and Looker and Nanu.  I love that segment. What really bothers me about this generation is that it’s the worst to play by miles.  Totem Pokemon were awful as a decision.  Cool, your idea of “challenge” is making every fight 1v2 with my opponent having like doubled stats, fantastic.  Even random encounters and the Call for Help mechanic just endlessly keeping the battle going if you can’t take out both options in one hit is a nightmare.  And Rotom Phone.  Oooooh my god, with this thing.  I hate it.  Sun and Moon is the only game that is top of its generation that I cannot bring myself to replay.  Even when I pick it up, I put it down as soon as I leave the first city, every time.  I have not made it off the first island in like five years.  It’s just unpleasant.

Ultra Sun/Moon (F1) - And yet somehow, the sequel game is worse.  Imagine having everything bad about the first iteration, but then making the bad parts worse, and tanking the only positive you had.  Totem Pokemon were made infinitely worse, by forcing you to deal with even cheaper strategies like Thick Club Marowak with Protect so it guarantees its partner, or the nightmare of facing Ultra Necrozma’s doubled stats.  In a game where OHKOs aren’t a constant, the idea of a massively powerful foe like that could be interesting.  But this is a turn-based game where every attack that thing throws out kills you.  This isn’t fun, you’ve just developed a check to see if I have enough Revives or Rotom Powers, and the latter is still just waiting to get crit.  It’s wretched. But even more unforgivable is how badly is botches the Aether Family.  Turning Lusamine into just misunderstood parent and having all that trauma and abuse resolved off-screen in the ten minutes you’re gone is insulting.  Having a post-game where Lusamine is turned into a damsel in distress for you to save from Giovanni of all weenies is bad enough, but to then have Lusamine come to and laugh with the family in the room where all her Pokemon are still frozen?  The game is just tone deaf and does nothing to actually rectify the problems it kept.  All the while they introduce the worthless Ultra Recon Squad running around like “Oooh, technology can be so bad for us.”  No it can’t, moron, because that wasn’t your issue!  Your issue was capturing a living entity and torturing it for a power source, you clown!  What are any of you talking about?!  USUM was terrible, and despite originally stating it’s the worst in the series, somehow it would be outdone twice, and even once within its own generation.

Let’s Go (F2) - Talk about a game that’s borderline unplayable and has no redeeming qualities at all.  Do you like having to jerk your controller around the room to throw a Pokeball, only for it to go in a completely different direction than how you moved?  Do you like having no ability to realistically improve your odds of success, and have Pokemon just run away from you at random if you aren’t lucky?  How about all of that, but also there is no challenge to any battle at any point, because the levels are scaled lower and teams truncated to like one Pokemon instead of usual team sizes, so the idea of encountering a challenge is laughable?  No?  Don’t play this game.  I have nothing positive to say.  And it’s not even the worst one.

GEN 8

Sword/Shield (D1) - Having had three years to cool off from the original launch, I’m willing to say there are some positives to these games.  Some.  I think much like XY, there are occasions where it’s something I’ll think about as junk food, but it’s actually harder to get invested in SwSh than XY.  Mostly, it’s because of how often something stupid happens.  Usually it’s “What do you mean they took away Altaria’s natural Dragon Dance?”  Movepools got annihilated this run, and while your options still exist, they now exist through Watts, the super tedious currency of the boring Wild Area.  Wild Area should’ve been huge.  A place to find every Pokemon in the game right at the outset?  You can build any team early!  Finally, my dreams!  But instead, it’s boring space where a ton of areas can’t be accessed because of level constrictions, and the “every Pokemon” is either a lie because you have to find it during specific randomized weather (one of which is only found in post-game), or because they’re in dens, the worst idea of the generation.  Dens suck.  And they suck because of how hard the game insists on hard saves before every action, or locks events to the day on the system calendar, making it impossible to soft-reset for anything you want around the terrible appearance rates.  Despite having Pokemon visually on the field, they put some hidden in the grass at random for no reason, ruining one of the only pure positives the game could’ve had.  I can’t even say it has any good post-game, because all of that is now tied to the concept of DLC, which...is legitimately good and enhanced a ton of what base game felt like it was missing.  Most notably, any sense of exploration?  Wild Area sucked, and each route is a straight line with almost nothing in it.  This region is dead and empty.  But Isle of Armor actually feels more interconnected and like you’re exploring a location, and is what the game probably could’ve been all along.  So unlike XY, which got elevated to B, SwSh is staying down in D, because even though I’ll sometimes go to play it, it’s a legitimately tough sell.

BDSP (F3) - I...literally cannot believe this game is real.  I forget it exists sometimes, when my mind wanders and I can forget the cruelty of the world. BDSP is the worst designed Pokemon game by miles.  Even Let’s Go can be forgiven for just being a bad idea an executive made about tie-ins to mobile games.  BDSP has no such excuse.  It’s a full-price “”remake”“ of Gen 4′s Diamond and Pearl, except it is point for point exactly the same.  Only now with dozens of incredible bugs that snapped the game wide open for people, including being able to circumvent blocks and get their limited time event Pokemon months ahead of schedule.  But the real sin is the League, and rematches.  Every battle has max IVs, max EVs, and a beneficial nature.  This game is a fangame.  This isn’t a main series Pokemon game, it’s the kind of crap you see some moron shit into a fangame after spending too many years arbitrarily complaining about “Difficulty” in Pokemon.  This isn’t a well-designed challenge, because it robs Pokemon of everything it is.  You cannot match this.  You, the player, cannot have perfect IVs.  You cannot have perfect EVs without spending millions of dollars on stat boosters, which requires ungodly amounts of farming random trainer battles that would honestly put you over-leveled anyway.  You can’t get most of this without breeding Pokemon, which should not be a requirement for the base runthrough.  Oh, but I guess it’s not, all you need to do is massively powerlevel to avoid being steamrolled by Aaron’s Heracross.  It’s just another rendition of GSC Red.  Their solution to challenge is to spike the difficulty so sharply that you have no choice but to engage in the mind-numbing process of level-grinding.  But that’s not being challenging, that’s being tedious.  And removing the sensation of being an underdog goes against what Pokemon is.  Do you know why EVs are the way they are?  Why stat experience was a thing, and why none of it is ever mentioned?  Because you’re not supposed to know.  It’s meant to be a hidden mechanic that the player has access to, pushing your stats up to match higher level Pokemon, to facilitate the illusion that you are the newbie underdog overcoming significant challenge through friendship and teamwork.  When you take that away, the game loses all of the charm the series is supposed to work with.  This game isn’t just badly designed, it’s antithetical to the entire series’ function. No love or thought went into this.  I legitimately wish they hadn’t even tried, because they massacred my favorite region.

Legends (A1) - So thank god for Legends.  Legends Arceus is a wonder to me.  After two generations of having some really awful products, having Legends Arceus show up with a fascinating new approach to the series, that builds on the lore of Sinnoh and produces one of the most engaging experiences I’ve had with the series in over a decade, is miraculous.  Yet here we are.  I adore this game with all my heart.  The speed with which progression moves is honestly the biggest improvement.  Who knew that what held the series stagnant was how slow and tedious random encounters were, and how much better it was to just smack that Bidoof in the back of the skull with a Pokeball and call it a day?  Having little action sequences with the boss fights was also fantastic, making the game about more than just the Pokemon battles.  Simplification of mechanics also worked greatly in its favor, with things like Frostbite and Sleepy being infinitely better status conditions than Freeze and Sleep.  And the story.  By god, the story.  This is a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game in spirit, and I adore it for that.  It’s so good, both how it handles its characters and how much it does for the lore of the Sinnoh legends.  It’s all perfect.  There were points in playing this game that I outright squealed in delight with what was presented, it was so good. But, that’s not to say Legends does not have flaws.  There’s a reason it’s not S.  Legends has very little in the way of battling, and as a result, isn’t particularly engaging on that front.  Which is wasn’t specifically trying to be, I can forgive that, but it is an area where it’s lacking to a degree it hurts experience.  Having opposing Pokemon gang up on you, but being unable to use AoE moves, really makes the experience annoying when you’re sitting through like six opposing actions because you made the mistake of leading with Rhydon.  This is especially noticeable, I feel, around Crimson Mirelands, when you don’t have much grit but are focused on getting into those distortions.  Getting hit by multiple enemies is a death sentence without being caught up on grit, which can kinda feel like the original Rescue Team Mystery Dungeon games, when you’re going through an area that is littered with traps and have to just accept that this isn’t for you until you can get the IQ to turn those traps off.  Which isn’t great.  And Alabaster Icelands, despite being a cool location, was never a place I lingered too long, because at that point I’m just eager to blitz the story.  There are points where Legends can feel like a little bit of a drag.  But all of its positives massively outweigh the negatives.

Hopes for Gen 9 If this turns out to be a B-rank game, I will be happy.  Like, that is how much I have to hedge my bets after Gens 7 and 8.  If it can be as good as XY, a game already not that great, I will be satisfied.

I think the biggest hope I have is that they really did take a lot of inspiration from Legends Arceus in their approach this game.  All else aside, the mechanical changes in Legends really made that experience shine.  I’d also hope, though not expect, to see battles become a bit more of a big deal.  Very little in the last three generations ever truly felt threatening and fair at the same time.  XY and SwSh lack a sense of threat in most fights, while SuMo constructed challenges that were terribly designed.  I’d like to see things go back to Emerald/Platinum structures, but honestly if I can go through this fight and feel, legitimately, like thought was put into the team composition and actions of the AI, I’ll take it as a win.

#pokemon #pokemon tier list

[pokemon-ash-aus]

question what would CursedAU Pikachu look like IF (and this is a big if) he evolved into Raichu, asking because of his tail

If Pikachu were to ever evolve, his tail wouldn't even form correctly, As a Pichu, he'd have a more nub like tail.

Fun fact, because of how under-developed his tail is. Professor Oak nor Ash knew what gender Pikachu was for the longest time, only getting it confirmed by a Nurse Joy a long while after.

#Cursed au #art #raichu #not canon to Cursed AU #but this is how Cursed Pikachu would look if he ever evolved

[pokemaniacal]

Pokémon Moon, Episode 8: In Which I Am Given A Stern Talking-To By A Colourful Sisterly Figure

“So what you’re saying is, you almost killed my Totem Lurantis because your crazy great-grandmother would have wanted it that way?”  Mallow folds her arms as she waits for an answer. “…she had a drinking problem.  And a gambling problem.  And… several legal problems.  But she was pretty spry for 94.” “When did she…?” “Um… well, about eight years back, the law caught up with her, and she grabbed a shotgun, stole a motorbike, kidnapped the neighbours’ Heracross, and skipped town, laughing all the way.  Honestly she’s, uh… probably still kicking.  Somewhere out there.”  I idly dunk a spoon in the half-finished pot of stew from Mallow’s trial and taste it. “Mmmmmmmm, that’s so f%&£ing good. Good call on the Revival Herb, by the way.”  Mallow shudders. “Okay, well… I’m pretty sure you did technically pass my trial… somehow… so… take these, I guess.” She thrusts a sack of Nest Balls at me, then hands me her Z-Crystal, the Grassium-Z, and leaves me to explore the jungle on my own.  Now that I can encounter and catch wild Pokémon there, I am rewarded with three new ones: Bounsweet, Comfey, and Oranguru.  I’m not exactly inspired by these so far.  Bounsweet is a round, pinkish-red fruit Pokémon that brings to mind the phrase “oh, look, it’s Cherubi,” but it does evolve into something that might not be Cherrim, so we’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.  Comfey is a Hawaiian lei Pokémon, one of those Flabébé-like Fairy-types that really looks as though it should be a Grass-type and has a bunch of stuff that supports Grass-types; it’s nice and thematically appropriate to the setting but doesn’t seem to evolve, and so far doesn’t really look like it’ll measure up to a fully-evolved Florges.  The third Pokémon, Oranguru, is so far the most interesting-looking – a purple and white apelike Normal/Psychic Pokémon that fights from a cross-legged sitting position.  It too shares a Pokédex page with something else, so there’s a good chance it will evolve.

When I leave the jungle, Professor Kukui turns up to congratulate me on passing all three of Akala Island’s trials, and remind me that I’m not off the hook yet: the next step is to face Kahuna Olivia in battle, to provide amusement for whatever primitive heathen deity rules this island.  But first, he has a little diversion for me: he wants me to come and visit a facility known as the Dimensional Research Lab, back in Heahea City. “If this is your way of recruiting me to some wild goose chase of a research project that’s going to get me killed in a ridiculous sci-fi laser explosion, Kukui, I swear to Arceus…” “No, of course not!” he protests.  “At the very worst you’ll be trapped in an alien nightmare dimension with no hope of ever returning home!  It’ll be no worse than being hit simultaneously with Mean Look, Trick Room, Shadow Force, and Dark Void.”  I stare at him in silence for a solid thirty seconds. “Eh. Good enough.” 

Lillie is already at the lab when I get there, trying to teach Nebby to use Splash, of all things.  I see right through her (admittedly clever) deception, of course.  When your real goal is for your Pokémon to lay waste to a region with the most powerful move of all – Explosion – what better way of avoiding suspicion than by pretending to focus on the weakest move of all?  I’m wise to your schemes, terrorist girl.  I give her a suspicious leer, causing her to squeak in feigned shock, and we enter the lab together.  The Dimensional Research Lab is run by one Professor Burnet, who happens to be Professor Kukui’s wife (GOD DAMN IT HE’S STRAIGHT).  She is also a friend of Lillie, having… randomly discovered her and Nebby lying unconscious on a beach three months ago.  This was apparently not a significant red flag to anyone involved. Lillie claims that she had been looking for Burnet anyway, and had simply “gotten lost” on the beach before collapsing from exhaustion.  How convenient, that circumstances should align so neatly for her to gain the sympathy and enter the confidence of the very professors she had been seeking.  I squint at Lillie again, mouth the words “I’m onto you,” and start scribbling in a notebook.  She returns a look of utter bewilderment and pulls down the brim of her hat to cover her face.  More importantly, returning to the conversation at hand, Burnet is a physicist who has dedicated much of her career to the study of strange phenomena designated “ultra wormholes.”  These are, as far as I can glean, mysterious wibbly-wobbly spacey-wacey holes in reality that occasionally appear in the sky over Alola and randomly spit out powerful demon-Pokémon to terrorise the region.

…this, I point out to nobody in particular, is yet another thing that the tourism brochures mysteriously failed to mention.

Professor Burnet is evasive when I try to ask her whether she’s actually seen a wormhole, or one of these “ultra beasts,” but notes that several known Pokémon possess power over dimensions, and claims that the sensitive equipment in her lab should be able to detect the wormholes. She also explains that the four guardian deities of Alola fought against the demonic invaders in ancient times to protect their region… which suddenly makes me very nervous that Tapu Koko’s plans to ruin my holiday may go way beyond just making me fight Pokémon battles for its amusement.

Of course, the instant I leave the lab, a gigantic glowing rift in space appears briefly in the sky, as if to taunt me, before closing up a few moments later. I’m… totally going to get drafted into a war between dimensions, aren’t I?

Whatever. Not my problem.  I’m just going to get on with this trial nonsense and pretend I didn’t see th- oh, gods, what if Nebby is the vanguard of the demonic invasion???  No! Nope.  I’m not thinking about that.  Just… go find Olivia.

Kahuna Olivia lives in Konikoni City, on Akala Island’s southwest coast.  To get there, I have to travel through Alola’s take on the Diglett’s Cave, a tunnel system inhabited by Zubat and Alolan Steel Diglett.  Olivia herself is actually there when I arrive, but is apparently too busy for me and requests that I meet her at her shop in Konikoni.  What is she busy with?  Well… apparently working with some of those Aether Foundation conservationists. The Foundation rents space in an office building in Heahea City, next to Professor Burnet’s lab (and right above Game Freak’s Alola branch), though as far as I can tell they don’t actually do anything there.  Their presence in the tunnels is a response to some recent unusual Diglett activity that has been making the area dangerous for travellers and miners, which they blame on Team Skull’s shenanigans.  Well, their story checks out – further into the caves, I encounter two Team Skull grunts I don’t recognise, and battle them in tandem with Hau, who is gradually becoming almost respectable as a trainer.  That was simple enough… almost weirdly so.  Team Skull are such buffoons, and I’m not even sure what they were trying to accomplish by disturbing the Diglett. Could there be some greater design behind their nonsense…?

…nah, I’m just being paranoid.  Just because their name starts with “Team” doesn’t mean they’re going to open a dozen of these wormholes and bring about the apocalypse.

Once on the other side of the tunnel, I take a brief look around Konikoni City. It’s a colourful city with heavily Japanese-influenced architecture.  Like most big Alolan cities, it’s a hub for tourism, with markets that sell rare incenses, TMs and clothing.  Down by the cape, there’s a lighthouse, but I can’t access it (yet?), as well as a woman who not only offers to teach my Pikachu Volt Tackle, but even gives me a special Z-Crystal.  I thought these things were sacred relics!  The Pikanium-Z, when its power is unleashed by the absolute stupidest dance I have yet been taught, transforms Volt Tackle into a truly devastating super-move… Catastropika. Catastropika?  Really?  That’s the name we’re going with here, Alola?  Not, like… Pikalamity, or Pikataclysm, or just Pi-Kaboom? Seriously, the translators dropped the ball on this $#!t. Whatever.  Apparently the rules for Z-moves are a little different to what the previous crystals had led me to believe – some of them are related, like Mega Stones, to just one species, or even just one move used by that species. Then there’s Olivia’s own shop. Olivia, a Rock Pokémon specialist, sells evolutionary stones and fossils.  Contrary to her earlier promise, she’s not there, but has left her Probopass to run the shop (because… why not?) and given it a message, telling me to join her at the nearby Ruins of Life, the home of the guardian Tapu Lele. 

Ohhhhh no. No.  I’ve already got one of these ‘guardians’ lording it over me and telling me what to do, just because it… like… I don’t know, saved my life or whatever.  The last thing I need is Tapu Lele arbitrarily deciding to offer me “guidance,” or punish me for trespassing, or turn me into an attractive paperweight, or-

Ugggggggh, but on the other hand, I can totally see a couple of members of Team Skull heading for the Ruins of Life through that creepy cemetery outside town. If Olivia’s gone out there to fight them, or they’ve gone out there to attack her… well, then frankly that’s her problem, right? …right? “Zzzzzt! I dunno, boss!” the Rotomdex interjects. “Sure seemzzzz like it’d be a dick move not to at least go check it out!” “No one asked you, you cursed calculator-watch,” I mutter, but decide to go anyway.  If Olivia�� somehow can’t handle those idiots, it’s bound to be my fault, one way or another. 

I do my best to pick my way respectfully through the cemetery on Memorial Hill, skirting carefully around each grave.  As I reach the other side, I spot the two Team Skull grunts – it’s “B” again, with another of his idiot friends.  But it’s not just them – there’s a Slowpoke with them, and they’re arguing with an Aether Foundation worker.  Beside her is a green-haired man with huge yellow-green glasses and a white lab coat, regarding the situation with strange detachment.  As I approach, I hear the Foundation worker shouting. “Team Skull!  Give back that Pokémon!”  The second grunt flicks a few random gang signs in her direction as he shouts his response. “Don’t give me trouble!  I’ll reduce you to rubble!” “Mmm, trouble/rubble; there’s an original one,” I interrupt, sidling up between the Aether Foundation worker and the man in the glasses.  “You know, I bet you’re the first in all the history of the English language to rhyme those two.”  I shoot the young woman a glance, and stage-whisper to her “Sarcastic enough? D’you think they’ll get it?”  She only stares at me, dumbfounded, so I shrug and turn back to the Team Skull grunts.  “Sorry, am I interrupting something?  You weren’t about to kidnap this Pokémon, were you?”  I feign a wide-eyed gasp.  “Tsk, tsk, tsk… You know, I really thought we were getting somewhere, boys, I honestly did.”  The second grunt just looks bewildered (I’m not totally sure whether I’ve met him before), but B looks like smoke is about to start pouring out of his ears.  I give him my most practiced look of sincere disappointment.  “Come on; I thought we were moving past this.  Can’t you let this one go?  For me?” I smile at him. “But- wh- you- NO!” he splutters.  “We’re gonna sell this Pokémon to get rich, and we won’t make no bones about it!  If you want it back, y- you- you’re gonna have to take it!”  I sigh and reach for a Pokéball… until the other grunt abruptly gets a look of comprehension and elbows B in the side. “Yo, homie?” he says quietly.  “This ain’t…? Is it?”  B turns to him and continues spluttering. “Wh-what you talkin’bout, dawg?” “Look, you don’t gotta let nobody step to you when your Team Skull brothers are around, ‘specially not this fool!  Take a chill pill, homie; I got your back!”  B’s gaze flicks back and forth between me and the other grunt for several seconds, then they both turn their backs to me and start arguing.  The Aether Foundation woman gives me a quizzical look, as though to ask for an explanation.  I shrug at her, but then inspiration strikes.  I hold a finger to my lips to signal for quiet, then crouch low and try to make eye contact with the Slowpoke.  It looks directly at me… then yawns and looks away.  I snap my fingers, glancing at the grunts to make sure they haven’t noticed, and the Slowpoke – with all the urgency of cold treacle – turns its stupid dopey face towards me.  I jab a finger at it and start beckoning it towards me.  A full ten seconds later, it gives a decisive nod, turns around, and begins walking directly away from me.  I roll my eyes, then glance around, grab a convenient rock, take careful aim, and throw it at the Slowpoke, striking it on the back of the head.  It turns around to face me again.  I jab my finger at it again, then point firmly at the ground beneath my feet and start beckoning once more.  This time, the blasted thing apparently gets the message and starts crawling steadily towards me.  I glance up again.  The Team Skull grunts are still deep in an animated argument about… something.  It’s definitely turning out worse for B, who is holding one hand to his face and cringing for some reason.  About a minute later, the Slowpoke reaches me.  I silently make a coo-ing face at it, and pat it gently on the head, giving a thumbs-up to the Aether Foundation girl with my other hand. “Sloooooooooooow…” the Slowpoke says, appreciatively.  This, unfortunately, gets the attention of the grunts again, who spin around to face me. “Right!” I say decisively, standing up straight and clapping my hands together. “I’m sure we all have other business to attend to today, so why don’t we all just-” but the second grunt is having none of that. “You ready?” he yells at me, grabbing a Pokéball from his belt.  “Cuz I was born ready, yo!” “Well…” I sigh, “worth a try.”  I send out my own (infinitely more responsive) Slowpoke… which turns out to be a mistake when his Pokémon is revealed as a Dark Raticate, forcing a hasty switch to my Trumbeak.  From there, though, Rock Smash makes short work of it. “That loss was pathetic!  Your moves were so kinetic!” the grunt declares, stunned.  B grumbles something under his breath, then shakes his head and shouts at me. “We don’t need that Pokémon anyway!  Take it then! Good luck and good riddance!” Both of them flee the scene.  The Aether Foundation worker breathes a sigh of relief and leans down to pat the Slowpoke. “Phew… thanks, kid.  I could’ve been in real trouble there…” “Now, now,” her companion admonishes her, speaking for the first time, “stand firm! Think of what the president would say!” “That’s what you say, Chief!  But you don’t lift a finger!” “Why, I am the Aether Foundation’s last line of defence!”  I frown at this comment, carefully scrutinising for any signs of particular competence, but he doesn’t seem to notice.  “What would become of the Foundation if something were to happen to me now?”  He tut-tuts her, then turns to me.  “You are a trial-goer aren’t you?  You’re a splendid trainer!  I’m deeply impressed!  I’d like to reward you by showing you something truly astounding.  Once you have finished your Grand Trial, come to Hano Grand Resort and I will take you to see a wondrous place.”  I accept his invitation with a shrug.  Can’t be any worse than whatever the Kahunas and the Guardians will want me to do next.

I continue along the path to the Ruins of Life, past a truly spectacular cliff side and up towards the ruins’ great stone gate.  Someone is standing in the path… a young woman… but as I get close, it becomes obvious that it’s not Olivia.  She has waist-length pink and yellow hair, black clothes, and… an unmistakeable Team Skull necklace, as well as the Team Skull logo tattooed in pink on her bare midriff.  Looks like I’m starting to attract all the wrong kinds of attention from these guys. I briefly consider trying to avoid her, but she’s clearly seen me first, and looks like she was waiting for me. “So…” she says, confidently strolling up to me.  “You’re the one Gladion was talking about?  Hmph.  You don’t look like anything special to me.” “Well… looks can be deceiving, right?”  I try to flash a confident grin back, but there’s something a tad unsettling about her. “…uh… is this about the Slowpoke, or…?” She looks me sternly in the eye. “I’m Plumeria.  I help keep Team Skull together.  I’m like a big sister to all those numskulls.”  Her expression softens a little.  “Look… you have realised what idiots all these guys are, right?” she asks. “Um. I- I guess?” I reply.  Obviously I have, but I’m a little taken aback by her frankness. “But… don’t you think some of those dummies are cute in their dumbness?  You know what I mean… right?”  Plumeria gives me a strange look that is somehow equal parts conspiratorial, teasing… and deadly threatening. “Um. No.  No!  I have no idea what you’re talking about!  What are you even implying here?  Who said anyone was cute?  Not me, that’s for sure.”  Plumeria glares at me coldly. “Is that so, punk?  Well, I gotta tell you – you picking on my cute, dumb brothers and sisters is really annoying me!”  She grabs a Pokéball and summons a Golbat.  Oh, thank Arceus, a problem I know how to deal with!  My Dartrix is a real champ in this fight, thanks to the affection bonuses we’re starting to accumulate; he dodges a Confuse Ray and an Air Cutter, and shakes off some nasty poison, to secure a win against the Golbat, and seriously injure the Salandit that Plumeria sends out in its place. Salandit finishes my Dartrix with Flame Burst, but its own weak physical defences leave it easy prey for my Trumbeak. Plumeria recalls her Pokémon, steps back, and looks me over for a second.  Even though I just beat her, her gaze is… still kind of chilling. “Hmph. You’re pretty strong,” she says. “I’ll give you that.  But mess with anyone in Team Skull again… in any way… and I’ll show you how serious I can get.” Without waiting for a response, she spins around on her heel and stalks off. “I’m not messing with anyone anywhere!” I call out after her.  “It’s not like I have a… a… a stupid ‘thing’ for one of your dumb little brothers.  Uh.  Or sisters.  Could be a sister; you don’t know me; you don’t know my life.  I mean, it- it’s not, because it’s no one, but- but you don’t know!”  Plumeria is long gone by this point, of course, but that’s no reason to let her get the last word.

Finally, I reach the entrance to the Ruins of Life, with Lillie suddenly right behind me, escorted by Professor Burnet.  Lillie is apparently here at Nebby’s behest, and doesn’t know much more than that.  Before I can interrogate either of them, though, Kahuna Olivia emerges from the ruins. She apologises for her earlier absence by explaining that Tapu Lele had summoned her to help “clean up” the ruins (wait… so the Kahunas have to do household chores for the guardian deities?  Okay, maybe I’m not really getting the short end of the stick after all). With minimal preliminaries, Olivia accepts my challenge… and promptly wrecks my $#!t.

I never intended my current team to be in any sense permanent – Raticate’s going to go at some point, probably Trumbeak too once I’ve finished exploring its evolution, and I’m not 100% on Pikachu or Slowpoke either – but even so, I have to admit it was a slight oversight to have three Pokémon with Rock weaknesses and none with a Rock resistance.

My Dartrix takes out Olivia’s first Pokémon, a Nosepass, without immense difficulty (though, again, a few affection bonuses help to seal the deal).  Then… in comes her partner Pokémon, Lycanroc, a creepy-looking red-and-white werewolf Pokémon that I can only assume is the evolved form of Rockruff.  Its powerful Rock Throw attack immediately knocks out my Dartrix and my Salandit, then as soon as I try to bring its defences down with Trumbeak’s Rock Smash, Olivia unleashes its Z-move: Continental Crush, which as far as I can tell is a move that works by dropping Australia on you. My poor Slowpoke flinches under Lycanroc’s Bite and doesn’t even get a chance to hit back with Scald.  Finally, my Raticate manages to bring it down with Crunch.  Enduring what would have been a finishing blow from Olivia’s final Pokémon, a Boldore, Raticate manages to do just enough damage before fainting to bring it within striking distance for my last Pokémon, Pikachu, to finish it off. 

Phew.  Okay.  Lesson learned.  No more underestimating Rock-types.  Especially weird, gangly werewolf Rock-types.

…what, you didn’t think I was actually going to lose that one, did you?  Listen, “wrecks my $#!t” is very much a relative term here.  Sure, it looked bad for a little while but I’m a former Champion (in multiple regions, if you count my… past lives, or… whatever… look, I try not to think about it too hard), and Olivia is, like, the head shaman of some backwards middle-of-nowhere hick island who does chores for a bird.  Of course I beat her; I’m amazing.  Give me some credit here.

Olivia rewards me with her Z-crystal – the Rockium-Z (did the Alolans listen to these names at all while they were picking them…?) – and sends me packing just as Hau arrives for his own Grand Trial. Hau has apparently received the same invitation from the Aether Foundation as I did, and is eager to get his trial out of the way so we can go and have a look.  Lillie is decidedly less enthusiastic, presumably since she knows the Aether Foundation is hot on her trail, and makes a stammering excuse. Well, whatever.  Sooner or later, Lillie… you can’t run forever.

Ridiculous quote log:

“Yo! I’m a herb seller!  I’m self-taught, but I sell good quality herbs!” Why does everyone in this region try to get me to do f#$%ing drugs!?

“There’s a faint smell of spices, sauces, and other fragrant things…” …okay maybe this is the time to admit that I… kiiiiiiinda have a thing for smelling other people’s beds?  Uh, I- I mean, it’s totally not a sex thing, not even a little bit; just, uh… if I come across someone’s bed, I like to… give it a good long sniff before I move past it.  Lots of people do it, probably.  It helps me feel closer to- wait, damn it, no, that still sounds weird.  That is, uh… I mean, if they wanted to sniff my bed I would totally let them, and- okay that sounds even worse.  Can we… just forget I said anything?

The team: 

Tane the Dartrix Male, Timid nature, Overgrow ability Level 28 Tackle, Razor Leaf, Astonish, Pluck 

Rhea the Trumbeak Female, Lax nature, Keen Eye ability Level 27 Pluck, Roost, Fury Attack, Rock Smash 

Ashley the Pikachu Female, Timid nature, Static ability Level 27 Volt Tackle, Hidden Power (Ice), Nasty Plot, Thunder Wave 

Hypatia the Slowpoke Female, Hardy nature, Own Tempo ability Level 27 Confusion, Yawn, Headbutt, Scald 

Soot the Raticate Female, Hardy nature, Hustle ability Level 27 Crunch, Tail Whip, Hyper Fang, Focus Energy 

Joanna the Salandit Female, Timid nature, Corrosion ability Level 27 Flame Burst, Sweet Scent, Dragon Rage, Smog

#pokemon moon playthrough #pokemon #alola #mallow #professor kukui #professor burnet #lillie #hau #olivia #bounsweet #comfey #oranguru #catastropika #team skull #plumeria #lycanroc #aether foundation

[funnythingshere0-blog]

25 Ridiculous Pokémon Backstories That Are Too Weird For Words

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25 Ridiculous Pokémon Backstories That Are Too Weird For Words

There are over 800 species of Pokémon currently known to the world. 800! For all of the awesome Raquazas out there, you’re bound to find some Bruxish. There are the epic, the creepy, the funny, the beautiful, there’s all sorts of different Pokémon out there. And each and every one of these creatures has a lot more going on with them than you’d assume at first glance. Some have funny quirks, some are actually quite off-putting, some are downright horrifying and others can often be found burning houses to the ground.

Pokémon are all very unique and interesting, and their backstories can often lead to more questions than they do answers. Have you ever really stopped and read some of the Pokédex entries about your favorite Pokémon? You might be surprised by what you find. In this list, we’ll be exploring the backstories of 25 Pokémon that are simply too crazy to be put into words. From possessed icicles to accidental crushing to child abduction (a lot of that last one actually), there’s parts of the Pokémon world that often go far too unnoticed. All Pokédex entries referenced in this article are credited to Bulbapedia. Without any further ado, let’s jump into it!

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25 Dranpa Is Burning Houses Down

via: pokemon.wikia.com

Dranpa, a friendly dragon type Pokémon native to the Alola region, loves children. It often befriends children from towns it lives near.

And if one of these children are bullied, Dranpa finds the bully, and burns their house to the ground!

Yup. Don’t bully, or a dragon will burn your house to the ground in a fit of rage. This is a surprising detail to just quickly throw into a Pokédex entry, but it honestly makes me love Dranpa. He’s just a protective friend who also happens to be a fire breathing dragon that will destroy anything that touches you.

24 Xatu Sees Everything And Is Absolutely Petrified

via: pokemon.wikia.com

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I’d like to read you a little Pokédex entry from Omega Ruby, “Xatu stands rooted and still in one spot all day long. People believe that this Pokémon does so out of fear of the terrible things it has foreseen in the future.” WHAT? What does that mean? Why is this so ominous? What can we learn from Xatu? Should somebody help him? Can we learn how to prevent tragedies from Xatu? Honestly, no Pokédex entry has the right to be this frightening, and I am left with so many burning questions that I’m not sure I want answered.

23 Metapod Could Just Leak Its Innards At Any Moment

via: pokemon.wikia.com

You know what makes me feel weird? Knowing that the reason Metapod doesn’t move is because at any moment it could tip over and all of its insides would just… spill out. This is horrifying.

Simply touching a Metapod could result in its unfortunate end.

It just makes me feel so sad for Metapod, it doesn’t move because it’s trying to avoid everything, any and all things that could make the transformation into Butterfree end sooner than expected. Harden until you can’t anymore Metapod.

22 Alolan Ninetails Just Wants You To Go Away Quickly

via: pokemon.wikia.com

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While this isn’t really ridiculous, the Ultra Sun Pokédex entry for Alolan Ninetails is absolutely hilarious to me, “The reason it guides people all the way down to the mountain’s base is that it wants them to hurry up and leave.” While Kantonian Ninetails is over here cursing people for 1,000 years if you touch one of its tails, Alolan Ninetails just wants you to not be near it whatsoever. Alolan Ninetails is all of us, please don’t come near me I don’t want interaction with humans.

21 Kadabra Was A Human Child Once

via: pokemon.wikia.com

One day, Kadabra was a human child. The next, it was a Pokémon! Is this Mystery Dungeon or something? No one in the Pokémon world seems the least bit concerned that an entire species seems to be existing just because a human boy morphed into one. This is a chicken and the egg scenario. What came first, the Alakazam Pokémon line, or the boy that transformed into a Kadabra? Something tells me I don’t want to know. Neither answer is truly satisfying.

20 Spoink Hops To Survive

via: pokemon.wikia.com

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You know what Spoink is doing every second of the day? Hopping. You know why?

If it stops, so does Spoink’s heart!

Yeah, Spoink is bouncing every second of the day, even when its sleeping, because its survival depends on it! I really don’t understand the decision making processes of game developers sometimes. Why did Game Freak decide to add this creepy little detail to Spoink? I have no idea! Do I hate it? Absolutely I do!

19 Shedinja Wants Your Soul

via: pokemon.wikia.com

Shedinja is a weird Pokémon. When Nincada evolves into Ninjask, if you have an extra Pokéball and a free slot in your party, you get Shedinja too. This Pokémon has only one HP, and is immune to all attacks that aren’t super effective against it. Pretty interesting huh?

Oh, also if you look into the crack on its back it steals your soul.

Why? Who knows? What I do know is that the only thing you see while battling with Shedinja is the crack on its back, so thanks for that Game Freak.

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18 Something Went Horribly Wrong With Porygon-Z

via: pokemonbyreview.blogspot.com

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A mistake was made. At least, according to every Pokédex entry for Porygon-Z, something went wrong. While Porygon2 is the sleek, upgraded version of Porygon, Porygon-Z is, different. Apparently, Porgyon-Z’s upgrades were to allow it to travel between different dimensions. This didn’t pan out as its developers had planned, and the upgraded Pokémon started behaving strangely.

Porgyon-Z is a defect, an error.

But honestly, how cute is that? This weird little robotic bird is doing his best. Support him. He’s earned it.

17 Drifloon Carries Your Children Away

via: allkpop.com

Rather than give any commentary on this Pokémon, I’m just going to give you several different Pokédex entries about it. Enjoy!

“If for some reason its body bursts, its soul spills out with a screaming sound.”

“Wandering souls gathered together to form this Pokémon. When trying to make friends with children, Drifloon grabs them by the hand.”

“These Pokémon are called the “Signpost for Wandering Spirits.” Children holding them sometimes vanish.”

“It is whispered that any child who mistakes Drifloon for a balloon and holds on to it could wind up missing.”

“Its round body is stuffed with souls and expands each time it leads someone away.”

Creeped out? You’re welcome.

16 Jynx Is Trying To Tell Us Something

via: pokemon.wikia.com

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Jynx has a language that sounds weirdly human. She is trying to tell us something, and we have no idea what it is. The thing that is weird about Jynx to me is that many of the Pokédex articles say that her language is very similar to human language, just not quite there. That’s so odd. What is Jynx’s language? What does she want to say? I want to know. I want to know what this large monster woman is trying to tell us.

15 Gardevoir Can Just Destroy The Earth At Any Given Time

via: pokemon.wikia.com

Gardevoir tend to be very protective of their trainers, so protective, in fact, that if their trainer is in danger, they can create a small black hole at will to protect them. I mean, yeah, that will probably do the trick to protect your trainer from whatever danger they were in, even if they perish immediately afterward because you know, a black hole would literally destroy the entire earth and all life on it. In a fraction of a second. This Pokémon is an incredibly intelligent psychic Pokémon that is willing to destroy all life on earth to protect its trainer. I can’t even get my cats to sit in the same room as me.

14 Yamask Used To Be A Human And Carries Its Face Around

via: pokemon.wikia.com

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“Each of them carries a mask that used to be its face when it was human. Sometimes they look at it and cry.” Ok, you know what, no. This is ridiculous. You want me to believe that Yamask is a former human that passed away, and it carries around its human face wherever it goes, crying when it looks at it? This is absurd. Why are there so many absolutely creepy Pokémon? Who came up with this? Why would anyone come up with this? This is petrifying!

13 Alolan Raichu Ate Too Many Pancakes

via: pokemon.wikia.com

Alolan Raichu is an adorable variant of the highly underappreciated (I wonder why) Kantonian Raichu. Alolan Raichu is a psychic and electric dual type that surfs around on its own tail, and according to the Sun and Moon official website, this is because Raichus in Alola ate too many pancakes!

Yup, Raichus turned into a completely different creature simply because they ate too many pancakes.

THIS is the type of evolution I’m here for. Survival of the fittest has nothing on survival of the best pancakes eater.

12 Something Horrifying Is Happening Under Mimikyu

via: pokemaster.es

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Mimikyu, the Pokémon that wears a Pikachu styled sheet over its body because it wants to be loved, is, like, so sad. What? That’s awful, the poor thing! Apparently, the Pikachu covering hides a terror inside of it, as a scholar who once saw under the sheet… is no longer with us. So take that as you will. Mimikyu is hiding something awful beneath a veil it uses to be loved and accepted by people and Pokémon alike. I’m sad.

11 Rapidash Has Friendship Powered Flames

via: pokemon.wikia.com

Rapidash is a Pokémon that is covered with flames. It’s back and tail are all on fire at all times. However, according to the anime, if this Pokémon trusts you, the flames don’t hurt you at all. Does that make any sense at all? Absolutely not! I mean, considering some of the other entries on this list though, Rapidash is the least of our concerns. Yeah, Rapidash may have trust-controlled flames, but at least it isn’t just forming black holes whenever it feels necessary.

10 Magcargo Is A God Amongst Men

via: pokemon.wikia.com

Magcargo is twice as hot as the surface of the sun.

If the sun ever explodes, we can just send a bundle of Magcargos up there and we’ll be fine.

The insides of Magcargo are 18,000 degrees fahrenheit! I absolutely love the fact that this fire turtle that looks like it has absolutely no idea what is going on has the power to wipe out an entire city with little to no effort at all. The fact that the Pokémon world isn’t in complete shambles already is somewhat of a miracle. Even turtles in this world hold a surprising amount of power.

9 Froslass Is A Possessed Icicle That Eats Male Souls

via: pokemon.wikia.com

Froslass has probably the most relatable, down-to-earth story in the entire Pokémon world. The soul of a woman trapped on a mountain possessed an icicle. Froslass was born. Froslass preys on the souls of handsome men. That is so relatable!

I too am a possessed icicle. My diet too, consists of the souls of handsome men.

You might be asking how a soul possesses an icicle… don’t worry about it. Leave the weird ice-ghost-monster woman alone. She’s living her best life.

8 Cubone Is Wearing The Skull Of Its Mother

via: pokemon.wikia.com

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Cubone is wearing the skull of its deceased mother, which is incredibly sad, yes, but it also leads to some interesting questions. Do Marowak have to perish after giving birth? Because I’ve definitely bred a Cubone before and the Marowak definitely lived. So, whose skull was that?

Did Cubone just find a skull in the daycare and just think, “yeah this will do!”

Also, how does Cubone get the skull? Do they go like, digging around in their moms to find it? Ok, writing that sentence made me really upset, so, I’m done with this entry, but I hope you’re questioning everything now like me.

7 Bewear Is Accidentally Crushing People

via: youtube.com

Bewear is a very powerful Pokémon, and it loves to show affection by hugging its trainer! Apparently, this is a dangerous combination, as it has resulted in… well, here’s part of the Pokédex entry, “Many Trainers have left this world after their spines were squashed by its hug.” Good lord, that is sad. This poor boy is just trying to let its trainer know that he loves them (and not by casually opening a black hole) and in turn… ends them. I’m getting more and more depressed as I write this article.

6 Hypno Is Also Stealing Children

via: pokemon.wikia.com

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Oh goodie! To lift our spirits, we now have a second Pokémon that steals children! While Pokémon X states there was one instance in which it took a child, Moon states that it takes anyone who’s having a good dream. Well, that’s reassuring! If I want to not be stolen in my sleep by a Pokémon and taken who knows where I just need to constantly have nightmares! Great! Don’t worry, since this entry was so dark, I’ll make sure to make the next one a bit brighter.

5 Gourgeist Finds Joy In Pain

via: pokemon.wikia.com

See! This one is much brighter. Gourgeist enwraps its prey within its arms, and sings joyfully as it suffers. Terrific! I don’t know why I’m surprised at this point. I’ve been exposed to so many horrors since beginning this article. I didn’t realize just how dark the Pokémon world truly is. A Pokémon that finds joy in the unhappiness of its prey is honestly one of the lesser monsters in this list. You do you Gourgeist. You deserve happiness too.

4 Rhyhorn Is A Danger To Society

via: pokemon.wikia.com

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Stop this man. Rhyhorn, as we can learn from his Pokédex entries, is powerful enough to take down a skyscraper. Ok, intense on its own, but wait, it gets better. If Rhyhorn gets mad, it just starts running. Running in a straight line, not stopping for anything, as it quickly forgets why it’s running. This means, make a single Rhyhorn mad, and it has the ability to level an entire city in minutes. How is everyone living in the Pokémon world not in a constant state of paralyzing fear?

3 Parasect Is Barely Alive

via: pokemon.wikia.com

“The bug is mostly dead, with the mushroom on its back having become the main body. If the mushroom comes off, the bug stops moving.” Oh. Ok. Well, that’s refreshing. Well, you heard that right!

Parasect is essentially a host bug being controlled by the mushrooms on its back.

Its pure white eyes reflect the fact that the Pokémon formerly known as Parasect is now a complete shell of itself, devoid of any and all life. Terrific.

2 Banette Wants Nothing But Revenge

via: pokemon.wikia.com

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Fun fact, Banette was once a stuffed toy! Fun fact, extreme hatred from being thrown away made Banette come to life! Fun fact, it now wanders around in search of the child that threw it away to finally have its revenge! However, there is a silver lining to all this, as treating Banette well (like it deserves!) has the chance to return Banette to its original form of a stuffed toy. Just. make sure not to throw Banette in the trash after that though. We all know what can happen.

1 Araquanid Drowns Small Pokémon

via: thegamehaus.com

To end our wonderful little list on a soft note, I’d like to leave you with the knowledge that Araquanid drowns small Pokémon in the water bubble on its head. While this is according to the Pokémon Moon’s Pokédex entry, Pokémon Sun states that protectively brings vulnerable Pokémon into its water bubble. So, whether it’s drowning these Pokémon accidentally or purposefully, Araquanid is definitely drowning other Pokémon. I’d like to hope it’s accidentally, but either way, just stay away from this little life-taker. Fun!

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Source: https://www.thegamer.com/pokemon-backstories-funny-ridiculous/

[majordetectiveagent]

Hey! I has a prompt if thats okay? Some soft Lucy/Maggie interaction, maybe a date night just the two of them whilst Alex is at work or Kara's :)

Alex leaned over the back of the couch and pressed kisses to the top of Maggie and Lucy’s heads. “Don’t wait up for me, I’ll probably go hang out with Kara after this battle.”

“Kick the kid’s ass, babe,” Maggie said, shifting as Munchlax rolled over in his sleep.

“I’ll kick his ass if he deserves it,” Alex said as she headed for the balcony. Kara’s Pidgeot lowered herself so Alex could climb on. “I don’t mind giving the worthy ones gym badges.” She was gone a moment later, Pidgeot diving off the third floor perch before swooping up into the air.

Lucy waggled her eyebrows at Maggie. “Now that we’re alo-”

Feebas popped out of a Pokeball on the coffee table. Lucy bit back curses as the fish knocked the wind out of her and Maggie. Lucy wrangled Feebas long enough for Maggie to get the Pokeball. Once Feebas was gone, Maggie pet her startled Munchlax back into his nap.

“Feel like a swim?” Maggie asked, trying not to be amused at the neediness of Lucy’s Feebas.

“If it means seeing you in a bikini? Of fucking course.” Lucy snagged her damned fish’s ball off the table and hauled Maggie up and towards their bedroom to change.

Five minutes later, they were at the beach just outside their home with a few Pokemon enjoying the water. Feebas was swimming circles around Maggie and Lucy, happy to be out and near her trainer. Maggie’s Dewott and Alex’s Squirtle were racing each other back and forth. Had Alex been with them, they would’ve let her Magikarp out as well, but they were certain Magikarp was due to evolve sooner rather than later and didn’t want to give it extra attention with Alex on hand to control it.

Maggie and Lucy raced out to a buoy and back; Feebas followed loyally, but the other two Pokemon had an aversion to buoys. Lucy wanted her winner’s back rub then and there. Maggie wasn’t opposed to putting her hands on her girlfriend, so sat where the water lapped around their bellies. Dewott immediately plopped down in front of Lucy.

“Only because you’re cute,” Lucy teased as she started to gently massage the developing arm and back muscles.

Squirtle pouted for a moment because of his shell. He settled in front of Dewott anyway and got a sand-scrubbing. Feebas rustled up the sand around them and brought Lucy shiny shells.

“My aunt called about the ranch again,” Maggie said after a few minutes.

Lucy glanced over her shoulder to gage Maggie’s mood. “Did she find someone to take over?”

“No. She still wants me to do it.” Maggie took a deep breath. “She’s willing to move the Eevees out here and set it up for me. For...us.”

Lucy turned around. “Us?”

“Yeah.” Maggie reached over and tucked a wet lock of hair behind Lucy’s ear. “She said we couldn’t be gym leaders forever, and the ranch is something we could pass on, make steady money off of…”

“The League doesn’t exactly skimp on their retirement fund, you know.” Lucy wasn’t against the idea, just surprised. For as long as she had known Maggie, Maggie’s Eevee breeder aunt only ever spoke of passing the ranch to Maggie, not all three of them.

“I think…” Maggie ducked her head, then looked back up. “I think she was willing to let me use the ranch as an out. But it’s been a few years now, and I think she’s convinced the two of you aren’t gonna kick me to the curb.”

Lucy squeezed Maggie’s hands. “If I was going to do that, I would’ve after the night of the teething Pichu.”

Maggie snorted and splashed her. “Says the woman who did the most research into comforting a teething Pokemon.”

“That was completely selfish,” Lucy said. “I wanted a full night’s sleep.”

“Sure. I believe you.” Maggie didn’t point out how her Pichu had pretty become Lucy’s after that week of intense care. Maggie didn’t mind, the now Pikachu was loyal to all three of them equally.

Lucy soothed her hand over Feebas as it maneuvered between them. “Alex would be the hardest sell. Too much like Eliza’s work.” Never mind that Alex and her mother were on better terms than they had been in years. Alex was still adamant about being a gym leader only, and nothing else.

“Yeah. I figured she could be the one to suss out the battlers and pets. Or she could just take over my gym to keep her busy if she doesn’t want to be involved.”

Lucy frowned. “You love your gym. You worked hard for that gym.”

Maggie shrugged. “If it means Alex doesn’t have to do something she doesn’t want to… But I think she’ll be willing if she gets a choice in the matter, rather than having it expected of her.”

“You might be right. Does your aunt have any kind of timetable?”

Maggie snorted. “She only told me to talk it out with you both and give her a reply before she’s too old to lift two Eevee at once.”

“So, like, twenty years,” Lucy said, laughing. Maggie’s aunt was the youngest of five and nowhere near old even with Maggie closing in on thirty. “I’m not saying no, but I think we definitely need to give Alex time to think about it.”

Maggie reached over the Feebas between them to wrap her arms around Lucy. She laughed as the two other Pokemon waited all of eight seconds before nudging themselves into the embrace. Lucy grinned at their antics and wondered how, exactly, she had gone from almost nothing to just about everything.

#pokemon au #director sanvers #prompt #georgiew2304

[junyuyangsbloggerapp-blog]

My Life and Pokemon

The long road to my current obsession. 

I live my life as a slave to Pokefanaticism. Just when I think I am free—that the lore of Pokemon will no longer excite me—there will be some other aspect of the franchise that will draw me in. I suppose it’s not too unlikely--this franchise has multiple manga storylines, an anime, many movies, and way too game continuities to keep track of. And yet again, for the fourth time, I am drawn in.

Both of these are Pokemon. Semantically, they are the same type. 

A rundown for those who may not have heard of or seen this franchise: Pokemon centers around these creatures called Pokemon. We’re not quite sure if they’re animals, plants, or household objects, because they are all of the above and also dragons.

But  we know is that they are all birds, because they all hatch from eggs.

Even the Ice Cream Pokemon.

Humans and Pokemon have a mostly mutualistic relationship, where they feed and help each other. Humans can catch and train Pokemon to battle each other, a process which is said to help both the human and their Pokemon. The storylines focus on different aspects to varying degrees, thus appealing to more people. It’s very common to find fans who have only played a specific series of the games, or only read the anime, or only played the card game.

My run-in with Pokemon first began in 2006 when I was eight and saw people playing with Pokemon cards. They all seemed like cool and well-adjusted people, so I thought, “Hey, if I play Pokemon, maybe I’ll become cool and well-adjusted too!” I bought some Pokemon cards because they were cute. I still flip through them sometimes.

Little me then set my eyes on the Pokemon games themselves. I really wanted to play Pokemon Emerald, which came out in 2005. It was hot off the griddle and looked absolutely packed with content. (It was. I still assert that it was one of the pinnacles of Pokemon main game development, even if I’ll have to fight one-hundred-and-one people who will try to convince me that ORAS is a better game. Literally, in order to beat some of the optional Emerald endgame content, you had to do calculations and strategize.)

There was only one problem.

My parents don’t believe in American food, Chipotle, Costco cakes, chicken tenders, or video games. They thought the latter would completely derail my life and firmly refused to get any consoles for me.

And so I learned to settle at a young age.

I settled for the anime. You know, the one about Ash, the annoying, forever-ten-years-old kid with the z’s on his face who refuses to evolve his Pikachu because merchandising and publicity said so. 

You might have heard bits of the age-long discussions “Who the heck is his dad?” (because only his mother has ever been revealed, and we don’t think his father died in the War) and “Why is he still ten?” He’s been ten for nearly twenty years now. 

That was a ridiculously childish show, where every episode had the same exact plot except the bad guys got increasingly better at crossdressing. Even 8-year old me could plainly see this and rant about it. The anime is pretty much responsible for many people delegating the entire Pokemon franchise to the “kids only” section of their heads, even though there are many parts of Pokemon that are...not so child-friendly. For instance, in the manga, there’s a scene where the villains kill the protagonist’s father and then decide to burn him so he can’t be revived.

But what the anime did right, and what no other branch of Pokemon has quite successfully captured. is the magic and spontaneity of battle and the vibrance of the Pokemon themselves. Sure, the anime characters are almost all some variation of “good-hearted and way too cheerful”, but they still had heartwarming and unique interactions with their Pokemon. The lack of human focus also allowed for entire episodes based on specific Pokemon and Pokemon families. And they would often showcase rather esoteric Pokemon too, which is great, because when you have hundreds of critters and your franchise only wants to promote the ones everyone already knows about, everyone else tends to slip through the cracks. People will wax lyrical about how Pokemon Adventures (the most well-known manga) brought forth increasingly complex, dark, and trashy plots, but it never really allowed you to observe the cute critters and watch battle mechanics because you would be too focused on whether or not the main character’s really annoying love interest was going to die.

Perhaps some of the introduced plot twists in the anime were rather...lame. Ash gets a badge at some point by accidentally triggering the sprinklers in a Rock type gym. Rock-type Pokemon are weak to water, and so he won. Regardless, that was pretty funny and shows how Pokemon actually interact with their world outside of battle (which may or may not be really violent dog-fighting, depending on who you ask). I quickly became entranced by the cute little mons dancing around, showing off their quirks and abilities, although the formulaic plot and pattern of the episodes easily bored me. You can only watch “Team Rocket shows up, tries to steal Pikachu, and then are lambasted into space” so many times.

Then, in 9th grade, I learned that instead of watching a bunch of too-peppy ten year olds duke it out, I too could take part in this violence. At that time, I was taking Fundamentals of Programming. The class itself was okay, but we were also learning Alice.

Thanks, Carnegie Mellon.

I mean, it wasn’t a bad programming language. It’s drag and drop, and most of the graphics have mansions in the Uncanny Valley, but it is far superior to Scratch. You could make some pretty sophisticated animations and games.

There is only so long you can gaze into the empty eyes of Alice Liddell.

And so we discovered the joys of Pokemon Showdown, a website where you could battle real life people. There are various tiers of battling you can partake in--each tier has its own unique limits on which Pokemon you can use--and the one we always battled in was “Random Battle”, where you and your opponent are both given a completely random, computer-assembled team. It was easy and quick, since we didn’t have to think about team-building (which takes literally eons) at all.

My peers and I became very involved in this. I remember battling out of boredom one day, picking the one-time username of “Grack 331” because Mr. Grack taught Fundamentals of Programming in Room 331. Out of the blue, my opponent messaged me: “Do you go to Troy High School?”

Turned out he was very bored in Robotics class and also indulging in the pleasures of virtual dog-fighting. (Although Generation VI asserts that this helps build a mutualistic bond between you and your Pokemon that will allow them to strip themselves of all humanity and inhibitions. This sounds like BS, but it does sort of hold up--Pokemon with human trainers are able to reach new levels of power. Given that some of Pokemon got the short end of the power stick, that’s pretty important.)

In this era, I became entranced with the complexity of battle mechanics. I learned about movesets, stats, and breeding. All were important considerations in selecting and creating powerful Pokemon who could counter almost everything thrown at them. In Pokemon, there is a concept of weaknesses and strengths. Think of it as a very complex 18-way game of rock-paper-scissors, except you could be rock and paper (and maybe have some scissors DNA lurking in there somewhere), and even if you were only rock, you could probably learn paper-like moves if your father was a piece of paper. Almost every Pokemon, regardless of strength, could be honed into a fine weapon capable of sweeping any opponent. (Well, except for Sunkern.) It was simply intriguing to see the way people play movesets and team compositions to their team advantage. I watched as very savvy battlers set up the field so that a pathetically weak pokemon could overpower opponents of huge power.

I think what ultimately stopped me from getting too into competitive Pokemon battling was the community. Interspersed between all the nice people, you had the hardcore fellows who believed in might over all else and delighted in tearing down others. They’re the kind of people who would go and curse you out if they didn’t like the way you battled, even if they literally didn’t know you at all.  My high school was already toxic enough--I really didn’t need more toxicity in my life. And so the second phase of my Pokefanaticism waned.

The next era came in the summer after 12th grade. Like everyone else, I started playing the darn new-fangled Pokemon Go (PoGo), where Pokemon appear as you walk around. You then throw balls at them and try to walk around more so that you could “catch them all”. I didn’t expect to like PoGo, because it looked like it would lack many of the features which drew me to Pokemon. There was no battling mechanic at all, no real human-Pokemon interactions, and the Pokemon themselves did not do much except engage in very basic battles and roar at you when you tapped them.

In here lay the ingenuity.

The game is so simple that there is literally nothing to distract you from ogling the cute mons. There are some noticeable patterns like “Water Pokemon tend to appear near rivers” and “Ultra Balls are more likely to capture Pokemon than normal PokeBalls”, but you really don��t need to understand very much to enjoy PoGo. Just look at the extremely simple catching mechanic, where you toss balls at Pokemon until one sticks. In the main console games, you have to think about weaknesses, properly trapping Pokemon so that they don’t run, inflicting status conditions like poison and paralysis, and picking the most optimal ball from an assortment of over 20 PokeBall varieties. (Things have gotten better, but PoGo is definitely a “appeal to as many people as possible” sort of game. Though it’s expanded its roster, it still focuses overwhelmingly on Kantan Pokemon and events, even though the last Kanto games Fire Red and Leaf Green came out in 2004. After all, when most older people think of Pokemon, they think of the Pokemon they grew up with, even though a lot of those critters had very clear design issues. These Pokemon happened to be Kantan Pokemon, Generation I.)

Thus, Pokemon Go lured in players who otherwise would have never touched Pokemon. The most hardcore players I’ve met understand all the in and outs of PoGo, but very little about the lore behind it. Heck, I met someone who had no idea that Mega Evolution is a thing, even though it is such a huge part of the games and advertising.

There’s nothing wrong with being a casual player, because I’m a casual fan for many franchises and I can still get a lot of enjoyment out of them. The problem (and why a lot of people are getting increasingly irked by Pokemon’s reattempts at mainstream approval) is when your games get dumbed down and gimmick-fied to appeal to more people. Take, for instance, the recent Pokemon Let’s Go! Series. It’s cute and all, sure. Many fans, me included, would rather see all that effort geared towards Sinnoh (Generation IV) remakes. Sinnoh is a grand region with so much lore and possibly the best Champion of all time. And yet, what do we get? We get another return to the most hackneyed region, because it’s the one everyone grew up with and remembers.

I digress.

No matter how I feel, I inevitably fell. PoGo preyed on me where it mattered. It fed on my love for cute things and targeted my tendency to hoard things. Just look at my nail polish collection.

And before I knew it, I was taking extra long laps around MIT just to get more mileage and losing weight. Sometime in my sophomore year, I discovered the MIT PoGo community. This broadened my horizons. I could now engage in “raids”, where you take down an extra powerful opponent with your “friends”. Just two months ago, I was carefully planning my day so that I could go to important raids. I remember getting my timeslot for an exclusive raid and realizing that it conflicted with a presentation I had to give. So like a normal person, I hunted down one of my friends who was free, carefully arranged teams, and gave my PoGo community the details of his appearance so that they could find him if necessary.

So what snapped me out of my PoGo craze?

I rediscovered the complexity which had drawn me to the franchise in the first place. It all began a week before my second 7.05 exam, when I decided to check out the web series Pokemon Generations (again). It is a 18-episode official webseries, where each episode is five minutes or shorter. Apparently, they couldn’t afford to pay for longer episodes. Unlike the anime I described above, it stuck closely with the game continuity and was definitely darker and grittier without becoming edgy. The animation was also very sharp (whether or not it’s “beautiful” is hotly debated) and detailed.

I’m not sure why I decided to rewatch a series, however short, during this time. Maybe it was to actually view it; the first time around, my involvement dropped drastically after Episode 5. This iteration, I began watching with more attention to detail. In Episode 8, which is an episode that explores, “What if Team Aqua, the evil team that aspires to become global warming and raise sea levels, actually succeeds?” I noticed that someone refer to one of my favorite villains, Shelly, and she looked...very different. 

I expected the one on the left; I got the one on the right.

At first, I thought, “Maybe there is another Shelly,” even though Pokemon takes great pains to not repeat names. A few moments of googling told me, nope, same character. As you can see, Shelly used to be a fiery redhead. This was extremely distinctive, because everyone else on her team was either bald, brunette, or lighter brunette. I loved her when I saw her in the anime, because she was literally the only person during that arc finale who was competent. Her redesign (right above) was also pretty snazzy, but it’s also fairly jarring for someone who wasn’t expecting it.

In my googling, I discovered two things. The first thing was that many of the older Pokemon games got remade, where the plot was rewritten, the regional fauna elaborated upon, and the characters redrawn. The second was that despite these clear differences, and the fact that there are so many main console Pokemon games, all of them (yes, even the originals and the remakes) are supposed to fit into the same continuity.

Here, my foot fell into a rabbit hole. When my friend gave me a copy of the game Pokemon Soul Silver, my entire body sunk in.

 See, all this time, I had never really gotten up to date on the progression of the pokemon universe. We have 7 generations so far—each generation bringing forth a new region and new pokemon—and I had never really learned about anything after Generation IV. Being extremely young back in the day, I learned about the individual regions but never stuck around long enough to learn about their remakes. A lot of game developments also happened in the meantime, and it turned out that the Pokemon universe actually was a collection of Pokemon universes, where each continuity differed by maybe just a few details that eventually became huge life-changing inventions/events. Formerly, we assumed each game was somewhat standalone.

You might have noticed that so far, I haven’t really talked a lot about the humans of the Pokemon world, because I didn’t put too much attention into them. They’re fairly flat battling fodder in the original.  

But with the remakes, due to changes in creative direction, a lot of the humans in the games got more characterization. It was not a lot, just enough for you to feel the presence of a personality growing in there somewhere. And with the realization that their world(s) were so delicate and easily-disturbed came the potential for character development and interactions.

Immediately, I immediately became intrigued by how all my favorite characters back in the day had changed. Some are not too drastic—Clair from Gold, Silver, and Crystal was a...witch that starts with a b back then, and Clair from Heart Gold and Soul Silver (the remakes) is still that. Others are sweeping. Courtney from Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald turned from a somewhat sly but also underutilized admin into a mentally unhinged and eccentric scientist who may or may not secretly have psychic powers that allow her to see the results of her actions. (Not that it stops her in pursuing her dangerous goals. Some contest that her visions of the world’s destruction might not actually be visions, but rather, disturbed fantasies. People are weird.)

And here I discovered a perplexing paradox.

I am very character and worldbuilding focused. If I were given a choice between a hardcore plot and really good character interactions, I will always take the latter. The fandoms which have jumped out to me are all fandoms with well-developed characters, even if the plot is weak. My Little Pony, for instance, is very slice-of-life, and many of its attempts to a plot are cliched and clumsy. However, the characters undergo a lot of individual growth and have extremely nuanced interactions that allow me to overlook plot issues.

The Pokemon games have neither a complex plot nor an intense character focus. (Really, the anime doesn’t either. Hence I stopped watching it.) The plot is quite literally: you, as a ten year old (somewhat older in subsequent games), venture out into the world and battle people. Along the way, you get called along to save the world since child endangerment isn’t a thing in this universe. After you defeat the Champion, the strongest trainer in the land, you can catch all the Pokemon that exist in your region. This is a very simple plot. Yes, there’s a lot to catch, and a lot of content and wade through. It still doesn’t change the fact that the trainers are basically fodder for you and that the entire setup is made to appeal to kids. What sort of parent would let their ten year old child wander out into a wilderness where there are threatening creatures in the fucking tall grass? There are so many, many other questions.

Look at this cutie, who you might encounter on your journey. Except its Pokedex entry reads:  “It is whispered that any child who mistakes Drifloon for a balloon and holds on to it could wind up missing.” -Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver

And then one day, as I was playing Soul Silver and trying to decide how some of these characters even functioned, it hit me why I kept coming back to this franchise.

In order for this very simple and formulaic plot to work, the world in which it takes place must be very complex. At the least, it needs to be radically different from ours. The process of understanding this foreign world and how they have adapted is what makes Pokemon so appealing.

Let’s start with an aspect of the Pokemon games that is mildly well-known: the extreme youth of the main character, especially when compared with what you can do. You’re in the early years of your adolescence, and yet you can summon gods while priests and lorekeepers trained to deal with them can’t (ORAS). Sure, this is all the result of a game mechanic that’s supposed to entice younger kids. Real Pokemon training would probably be very dangerous and arduous, because Pokemon are basically dangerous weapons that could kill you. No one wants to play a game about what is basically dog-training but where the dogs are also nukes.

But if the Pokemon world were real, training would be very dangerous and require lots of patience. And most certainly, no one would send out their ten year old into the wild. One can dismiss all of this, rewrite canon for their purposes, or comb through the dialogue and events and develop a reasonable society in which things like this can become accepted.

And so my current obsession is constructing a reasonable and nuanced headcanon where characters are distinct and multidimensional. This is twofold. It is always mind-broadening to see how other people have interpreted the context clues and gotten creative, in the form of fan art, headcanons, and fanfiction.

There is a special whimsy about the Pokemon world which makes it especially appealing despite all the plot voids which exist in it. It is a world of really weird people and really strange life motivations. You have the mishmash of multiple tropes, Chosen Ones who are passed over for you despite being more magical and gifted than you’ll ever be and a lot of heartwarming goodness where you would expect none. People take baths with their venomous Tentacruel, they get their dreams ruined, they drop their balls…what more could you want?

Thanks for letting me know? 

I imagine in a few months, my Pokefanaticism will wane once more. But soon, as more content and more oddities are added, it will flare up again and again. Generation VIII is coming out in late 2018, after all.

[phoenixfics]

We All Live in a Pokemon World: Yellow Version

On AO3

Summary:  Yellow is a young Pikachu, unaware of the fact that he is about to go on the greatest Pokemon adventure in history. In a world of Pokemon, it takes both brains and brawn to make it to the top. If only he can get over his fear of Pokemon battles...

Chapter One: The Road to Viridian City

Yellow looked up at the slowly darkening sky with worry. He had spent most of the morning walking along Route One, a pretty path lined on either side with fields of flowers and small clusters of trees which spanned the distance between Pallet Town and Viridian City. The tree-lined path offered only the barest shade from the hot summer sun, but the sun had disappeared behind grey storm clouds not long ago, and the rest of the sky seemed to be quickly following. Suddenly the lack of ambient noise which Yellow had attributed to it being a lazy Sunday afternoon made him nervous. Usually a travelling pokémon could count on the locals for company: those who preferred the wild life, living in rugged trees and holes in the ground, or else fellow travelers, sticking to well-worn paths rather than navigating the wild. But the route was quiet and not a pokémon was in sight. Nearly everyone seemed to be hunkered down in anticipation for the oncoming storm. The darkening sky made the tree-lined path more eerie than cheery and Yellow adjusted the satchel on his shoulder, quickening his pace along the dusty path. It would only be a matter of minutes until rain started pouring on Yellow's head. If he wanted to avoid a potential disaster, he would have to find shelter, and fast. Those clouds looked capable of producing lightning as well as torrential downpours. That was never a good combination, especially for a lone pikachu like himself.

Yellow cursed to himself as he ran along the worn-out path to Viridian City. He didn't know how much further he had until he reached the city. This was the furthest he had ever been from Pallet Town, despite Viridian City only being a half a day’s journey.

Why did I agree to this errand again? Oh right. I’m too afraid to say ‘no’ to anyone.

Finally, Viridian City appeared over the horizon, bright and noisy. Yellow hardly had time to appreciate the immensity of the city before he felt the first drops of rain. Recalling his instructions to find the PokéMart located near the southern entrance to the city, Yellow looked around for some sort of sign to point him in the right direction. Luckily the streets were well marked and empty of pokémon and he quickly found the blue-roofed building, praying that the lightning would hold off until he made it inside.

The large automatic door slid shut behind him just as the first flash of lightning lit up the sky.

The store looked eerily empty. Except for the cashier and Yellow himself, there was nobody in the brightly lit store. It seemed that, like on Route One, everyone in the city was trying to avoid the storm. Summer storms were known to be intense but short, so most pokémon usually found somewhere sheltered to wait out storms rather than risk injury by going outside. The cashier, a young hitmonlee not much older than Yellow, looked up from his video game and quickly hid it under the counter. The music was still audible, and he seemed to be thoroughly embarrassed. Yellow gave a sympathetic smile. Then he remembered why he had run into the store.

"Err...I was sent here by the Professor. Professor Oak that is...I'm not sure if you know him, but..."

"Oh!" The hitmonlee's eyes widened. "I've been expecting you! The Professor ordered a new product the other day and it got delivered here by mistake. I didn't know he was sending a pikachu, all he said was that one of his assistants was coming today to pick it up. I guess that's you, right?"

Yellow nodded, and hoped that his embarrassment wasn’t showing. He wasn't really Professor Oak's assistant. In fact, he hardly knew him. But Yellow wasn't about to say no to the most well-known pokémon researcher in all of Kanto, and Oak told him that he would be given a reward for picking up the package. The hitmonlee left the register and went to the back of the shop, calling out behind him, “I’ll just be a few minutes, the inventory room is a mess, why don’t you look around a little?” Yellow took his advice and meandered up and down the aisles, the jingly music of the video game fading in and out of hearing as he walked back and forth. PokeMarts were the largest chain of convenience stores in Kanto, so they had a little bit of everything, which made browsing really interesting. Yellow’s hometown of Pallet was void of any chain stores like this, and Yellow was excited to see what all the hype was about. There seemed to be a new brand of battle stimulants on sale, boasting that they would boost your abilities in battle for up to one hour after ingesting them. And there was a large bin full of cheaply made pokédolls, mostly clefairys for some reason. There were a few fishing rods in the back corner that they looked like they had never been touched, which wasn’t surprising since Viridian City wasn’t exactly on the coast. After a few minutes of browsing Yellow heard the hitmonlee’s heavy steps and he made his way back to the counter.

"Here you go," the cashier said, as he handed a medium sized cardboard box down to Yellow. Yellow thanked the hitmonlee and exited the shop. As he left he saw the cashier pull his video game out from under the counter. It was still raining, but the lightning had let up enough that Yellow felt he was safe to run across the street to the pokémon center. He didn't want to get whatever was in the box wet, so after putting it in his bag he sprinted as fast as he could to the pokémon center door. The lobby was overcrowded, probably due to the many pokémon seeking refuge from the storm. Thinking it would be wise to stay for the night rather than walking home in the dark or getting the mysterious contents of the box wet, Yellow squeezed his way to the reception desk and asked for a room. The chansey at the counter gave him a sad look.

"I'm sorry, but there are just no single rooms left. If you'd like, you can share with another someone who needs one, but you'll have to ask around. We only have a few double rooms left, so you'll have to hurry."

Yellow nodded and set off to find a roommate. He hoped that someone would approach him first. He’d never been to a large pokémon center and wasn’t sure about the etiquette in this kind of situation.

How am I supposed to ask someone to room with me? Do I just go up and ask if they want to sleep with me?

He asked a butterfree, psyduck, sandshrew, oddish and pinser (he was getting quite desperate at that point) before finally, someone agreed to room with him for the night. It was a burly and aggressive looking mankey, and Yellow was a little hesitant at first, but as he talked to the mankey, he realized that she was actually quite nice, and was in fact looking for a roommate herself. Together, they went back up to the reception desk and got a room key from the tired chansey. As they walked to their room, the mankey introduced herself as Judy, and told Yellow that she had come to Viridian city from her home town of Cerulean to challenge the Viridian City gym leader. But when she got to Viridian, the gym was closed.

"You want to challenge Giovani?" Yellow asked, stunned. "Only the strongest pokémon even consider challenging him! He's like...unbeatable!"

Judy gave Yellow an amused look. "First of all, he's not ‘unbeatable’. Nobody is unbeatable, not even Lance. Second, I need only need one more badge before the end of the year if I want to take the elite four challenge, and his is the one I need. And third of all, who says I'm not strong? Just because I'm young and I'm not evolved doesn't mean I can't fight!" Judy had clearly had many arguments about her abilities in the past because her amusement quickly turned to irritation as she continued her rant.

Yellow raised his paws in surrender. "Whoa. I never said anything about your age having anything to do with my doubt. I've just never heard of a mankey trying to challenge the strongest gym leader in the league. Even the other gym leaders seem to avoid him!"

Judy raised an eyebrow but smiled. "Would you like to battle me? Then maybe you can see just how strong I am."

Yellow’s stomach jolted.

"Err...I'm not sure..."

"What are you, a scared little caterpie?" Judy laughed playfully.

"It's just that, I've never really...well, I haven't really..."

Judy stopped laughing and a serious look flashed across her face. "Are you trying to tell me that you've never battled before?"

"...yeah..."

Judy looked like she didn't know what to say to that. To a fighting pokémon, saying that you didn't battle was like saying you didn't drink water. Both were an essential part of existence. Seeing the look she was giving him, Yellow quickly tried to explain himself.

"It's my mom. She is so protective of me. She didn't even really want me to come to Viridian city on an errand for Professor Oak, and I only live in Pallet town! There aren't a whole lot of pokémon in my town who are into battling either, so if I really wanted to fight I'd have to go in the woods and battle the locals."

Judy nodded in understanding but gave Yellow a look that he took as pity. "Well, if I'm going to battle Giovani tomorrow, I'm going to need a lot of sleep, good night Yellow."

Pleased that he didn't have to explain himself any further, and pleased that Judy believed his reasons, he said goodnight and turned off the light on the way to his bed.

When Yellow woke up the next morning Judy was already gone, though she had thoughtfully left a note on the door.

'Yellow: Thank you for letting me room with you last night, I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't found a room. I'm sorry I left without saying goodbye, but Nurse Joy told me that Giovani would only be accepting one challenger per day, and I wanted to be that one. I hope our paths cross again someday, and if not, good luck with all you do in your life! Don't worry about last night, I didn't mean to upset you, I was just surprised a pikachu like you wouldn't be into battling. You knew so much about Giovani that I though you must be challenging the gym leaders too. You were even doing an errand for Professor Oak! He’s a legend in the battling scene! Well, I'd better start to wrap it up, so bye! Love, Judy, your new friend. p.s. If you ever change your mind, I'd still love to have a battle with you! I live in Cerulean City, and our Nurse Joy can point you in the right direction if you can't find me. Even if you don't want to battle, you can still drop by anytime! My mom bakes a great apple pie!'

Yellow was touched by the letter. He didn't have any friends at home, his shy personality and submissiveness didn't attract many friends in a town such as Pallet, where despite what he told Judy, nearly every child tried to compete in the league. He often got made fun of, and his supposed lack of enthusiasm about battling led to many awful nicknames, "Wimpychu" and "Mellow Yellow" among the worst.

After carefully folding Judy's note and putting it in his bag, Yellow checked out at the desk and started walking back to Pallet Town. He had a long walk ahead of him if he wanted to make it to Pallet Town before lunch.

#mywriting #pokemon #WALiaPW