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pokemenlovingmen · 1 year

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ur writing has truly captivated my attention, i truly adore how you characterize everyone, and thats not yet reading your other writing requests AAAAA!!!! im just!! wow cat eyes wide holding these fics in my hands gently

if its alright, im a little embarrassed to ask so quickly, could i ask for more general loving teasing for adaman? just flustering him (by blatantly flirting with him if anything) sounds like a fun time tbh msbdndb

I’m sorry I didn’t respond to this sooner, I wanted to, but since it had a request attached I waited on the post. But thank you so much!! You guys are for real SO NICE, like for as many specifics and rules as I have for requesting and interactions I’ve pulled such a kind and supportive audience. I usually write full fics in my spare time, but it’s been hard to finish any project so these headcanon list type things are good to keep the creative juices flowing, and I’m so flattered that what I basically use as practice pieces are things you like so much!!! You guys are so kind!!! I’m glad you like my stuff so much!! We gays are in this together!

And Adaman requests are always speaking my language, I’ve never been as down biblically bad for a man in a Pokemon game as I have that guy <3

Teasing and Flirting w/ Adaman!

💎 — Adaman is pretty hard to shake up, not that he’s stoic, but more that he’s just so laid-back and being raised into this clan leadership position, it’s second nature for him to just be ready to react to anything.

💎 — And if someone he didn’t have feelings for tried teasing or flirting with him, he’d probably just smile, totally oblivious to their true intentions because he’s got a million things on his mind and any attraction for that person isn’t one of them. He just won’t think anything of it.

💎 — But coming from a person he is romantically inclined towards, however…

💎 — Well, he might laugh a lot more at your jokes. You might catch him running a hand through his hair with surprising regularity. Like he’s nervous or something…

💎 — He’ll usually do that classic narrow-eyed Adaman Look towards you when he realizes you’re trying to get a rise out of him. Well, ha! He’s the leader of the Diamond Clan, and he’s more strong-willed than that, thank you very much.

💎 — But okay, you’re really testing him. He’s good at keeping his voice steady, but if you’re around other people there’s no mistaking how his face tints just sliiiightly pink when you talk.

💎 — Walk up to him and twirl his hair while he’s just talking to someone or even just minding his own business, he’ll whip around and give you a MASSIVE glare.

💎 — Hugs from behind really fluster him. If you wrap your arms around his waist the first thing that kicks in is the “defend myself from wild Pokemon” instinct, and once he realizes it’s only you he’ll just scowl and try and ignore you.

💎 — The “scowl and try to ignore you” is a regular technique of his that usually doesn’t work. Of course, you know him well enough to tell the difference between when he’s flustered and actually mad. Adaman’s face doesn’t go all red when he’s angry.

💎 — He’ll take your first few flirtatious comments in stride but the thicker you lay it on, the less dignified his responses get.

“Do you know how pretty you are?”

“Why, yes, I did! Thank you for noticing, S/O.”

“You’re soooo cute when you smile.”

“Did you mean handsome? I don’t think a clan leader is meant to be ‘cute’.”

“You have the sweetest laugh ever, I want to hear it more.”

“Very sweet of you, but we’re in public!”

“If I kiss this spot behind your ear, you get all red and it’s the cutest thing ever, look…”

“Eh?! Can’t this wait for somewhere more private??”

💎 — Funny thing is, Adaman does a lot of teasing himself. He’s suave, confident, and charming, being teasy and flirtatious is just second nature. But if there’s one thing that’s also true about Adaman, is he CANNOT take what he dishes out. His flustered reactions to your teasing are pure and simple embarrassment. He’s nervous about looking too soft.

💎 — He’s never been in a relationship before, much less one with a man, and he has a lot on his shoulders as clan leader. Romantic interactions, all that playful couple stuff, it’s all so new to him and being on the receiving end of it just. Short circuits him. It’s why you find him so fun to fluster, and also why he forgives you so quickly—it’s just some harmless fun and your little way of nudging him to relax a bit in your relationship.

💎 — And he understands and appreciates that! He loves the flirting, deep down, he just has literally no idea how to react to it. Feelings?? Help?? Man calling me pretty make my heart go thump??

💎 — When you two are finally somewhere remotely private, he drags you off by the arm with a “what was that?!”

💎 — You just wink at him and tell him he’s so cute, it’s just hard to help yourself sometimes.

💎 — He’s also very weak to winking. That suaveness sweeps him off his feet.

💎 — When he does get you alone while you’re still in that flirty, teasey mood, he’ll probably scold you a bit and try as hard as he can to be mad at you—which he isn’t, because he’s a pushover and also this attention just tickles his heart in the best way.

💎 — But after he gets done sulking… he might scoot a little closer to you and shyly ask if you could talk like that with him again, or be playfully affectionate again, it really did feel good.

💎 — Just stop doing it while he’s trying to handle clan business!! You HARLOT. (affectionate)

💎 — But hey, you’ll get him to loosen up eventually. Until then, it’s pretty funny to watch him struggle to conjure up a proper reaction to you being this way.

(This all came out incredibly sexual-sounding which wasn’t the intent at all… my apologies. The harlot thing was a dramatic jab but nothing was intended as sexual here, Adaman getting flustered was just him getting flustered, nothing more. That ended up being really challenging to convey though, I’m sorry. ;;)

#pokemon x reader #adaman x reader #adaman x male reader #pokemon male reader #male reader

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leggerefiore · 1 month

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Back in your inbox to discuss Cyrus bullshit again lmfao. I am normal. Totally normal.

So media literacy decline aside (no really, the reports are scary, less people can interpret nuance and hints), I blame 1) how young most of us were when we first played the games, 2) the OG Diamond and Pearl characterization (because it was a little different than Platinum's) and 3) the Pokemon Anime.

Largely skipping over the age thing because it speaks for itself. A good number of players were probably too young to catch all of the hints or grasp how irrational and emotionally driven Cyrus really was. Like, a legit Trauma Meter for our age group (20s) would be to ask if Cyrus freaked them out, or if they thought he had a point. Whatever the collective's first impression was would've colored YEARS of discussion and content. And I'm pretty sure I remember his reception being negative. Of course, the theory that he wrote the old notebook and that the old man was his Grandpa (meaning Cyrus was an abuse/neglect survivor) always existed. But before USUM and PokeMas added more implications, they were treated as "Just Theories" or after Platinum, retcons. Likewise, I think a good number of the older players WANTED Cyrus to be evil, so they kinda ignored it. Though there was an equal faction WISHING for a well written Sympathetic Villian. They missed Giovanni and had little hope GameFreak could write a worthwhile sympathetic villian because while Maxie and Archie weren't evil, their plan was just so stupid? Maybe it's because I grew up in a rural area at the start of the Going Green era, but I can remember being taught basic ecosystems in like 3rd or 4th Grade Science and learning that major changes to the environment were bad? And they were supposed to be super smart scientists?

On to game characterization, D/P Cyrus and Platinum Cyrus were portrayed slightly differently and I don't know if it was intentional or not, given how subtle the changes in the overall story were. But it boils down to a matter of A Means to an End, where D/P Cyrus seemed like he was changing the world to become a God, while Platinum Cyrus wanted to change the world and has to become a God to do so. Likewise, I don't think the implications that Cyrus was the abused/neglected grandson of that Old Man and the author of the old notebook were as strong. Also every scene with Cyrus in the Distortion World didn't exist in D/P so you didn't witness his breakdown or him admitting to his own faults. Charon/Pluto also wasn't in D/P, nor was the Rotom Room which was the first thing to give the "Cyrus wrote the Old Notebook Theory" any credibility.

My last reason was the Poke Anime and I talked a bit about it in a comment the other day. I have since looked it up and the D/P Anime aired the same day as the D/P Game Release, in Japan at least. So the 2nd most prevalent and remembered version of Cyrus is an ASS. The Anime did a great job of showing us the double life he was living, smiling and dressing/acting normal, albiet hammy, in front of Cynthia and that one old lady. But for a cold, stoic villian, he was super agressive, loud, short-tempered and dismissive in the anime. In that clip you shared, he wasn't calmly explaining why fighting was useless, he was about to snap on his admins. He yelled at someone else to (Ash I think). So it didn't even do a good job of portraying him as the kind of villian he was supposed to be, though this may have been because the series ended in 2011, so it may have been affected by the Platinum retcons.

But yeah, I'm also kinda sad about how people see Cyrus, but it isn't surprising. For everyone who "grew out of" pokemon or just never played Platinum, USUM, PokeMas or BDSP, they have to go back and relearn everything and not everyone does that. Nor will everyone want to because again, some people wanted Cyrus to be genuinely evil. And even if they do want to learn what changed and are open to it, they have to sift through years of content saying he was actually that bad.

It was a nightmare explaining to two of my homies why I was suddenly trying to write fanfic and draw fanart of him because they didn't get the memo.

Quick correction - It is not a theory that the old man is Cyrus's grandpa. It's confirmed from my understanding. Which it means Cyrus is likely an abuse victim (though, what Cyrus was going through was never entirely specified. Just that it was bad enough to concern his grandfather.)

I will note that his characterisation did change between Diamond-Pearl and Platinum (and now BDSP has introduced younger people to the pre-Platinum story), so I will give them that. But specifically, I was on the USUM battle theme still seeing it. (Interestingly, not at all on the BDSP rendition, though. Maybe because it's just Sinnoh fans who already know everything.) One of the top comments was ironically a joke about him seeing the Rotom Dex and wanting to kill everyone.

I think his character is really just generally misunderstood because of how subtle everything was is what I was originally trying to say. Like you said, some of it is general literacy issues. It just makes me sad to see him so misunderstood... I think Game Freak did a really good job writing him. Though, he does clearly read as emotional in both Diamond-Pearl and Platinum. At least, seeing his little chibi march up to you in BDSP after you ruin his plans really shows how emotional he truly is. While the Rotom Room journal is clearly only a theory, I do truly think he is the only logical character who fills that role so well. (Charon 100% would use Cyrus's childhood trauma journal for its precious Rotom research without a doubt seeing how quick he was to try to take over Team Galactic.)

I am glad that they gave him depth rather than just making him a generic bad guy... Actually, considering that Platinum was just before BW (well, a few years but development wise, I mean), I think it might have been their first steps into more character driven plots. I do hope people end up looking more into Cyrus, but I know he isn't the most popular villain at all. (I believe that crown goes to either Archie or Guzma. Or. Well. Lusamine, actually, probably.)

I convinced my friend by telling her about the Rotom Room stuff, actually. She already liked Cyrus since she is super into Sinnoh, but apparently, learning that he was besties with Rotom when he was a child sold her. Now she bravely helps me write for him sometimes lmao. My other friend, however... She still doesn't believe that he's actually 27.

Granted. Youtube comment section opinions should probably always be discarded.

Except maybe... This one. This is the only good and acceptable one lmao

#cyrus.ima #long post

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savebatsfromscratch · 1 month

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Hockey Watching - Palletshipping Week 1 (Roommates)

Summary:

Gary and Ash watch a hockey game together. (Au notes in final note in ao3 version, I put them at the top in this one.)

Notes:

Prompt: Roommates Note: The first thing I went to was watching a Hockey game together. …for some reason. I kinda made up my own Pokemon world teams, but feel free to imagine your favorite team I guess. (Though if it’s not the Sabers I don’t want you here. /light hearted) Also, for the record, they’re kind of American coded in this one. Whoops. I apologize for this look into my mind. Cws: Surprise kiss, sort of nonsensical writing Words: 1,791

End Notes:

…dude this is such a mess. (<- did not even try to edit it.) Here’s a fun secret, I headcannon Blake (from Pokemon Adventures) as a Hockey player, and I made his number his dexholder number! :D I also headcannon Jun (from Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Adventure) as a Hockey player, and I made his number “3” because he has three total pokemon lol. I also put Hareta (from the same series) on his team and made him number “1” because that’s the number of my favorite Sabers goalie. :3 I also Headcannon Barry and Jun as triplets (the third being Pearl from Pokemon Adventures.) I also had to make up a last name for both Jun and Blake. For Jun I gave him “Aemilius,” because I went the roman route and it “was originally derived from the Latin word aemulus, which referred to equal or rival.” (iGENEA) And I gave Blake Rasmussen because it starts with an “r” sound and so does his Japanese name AND Rasmussen would look SICK on a Hockey jersey.

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54803911

Prompts from here: @/shigerussato

Fic under the cut!

Gary plopped down on the couch in front of the already flickering TV, one hand clutched around a large can of some gross thing that Delia had bought them, and the other clinging desperately to an overfilled bowl of chicken wings. Already on the couch, Ash laughed and turned up the volume on the TV with the remote that he had apparently located. (Last time Gary had checked in, the two of them had been pretty sure that that thing was gone for good.)

“Is the game on yet?” He asked, setting the huge cup down on the coffee table (and releasing a short prayer that it wouldn’t spill) as he looked up at the current rush of ads across the television screen, “Who’s winning?”

Ash giggled and got halfway through a, “Not yet Oak,” before stopping and realizing that something was still missing from their Hockey watching spree. “Um, you did get us napkins, right?”

Gary looked around himself, and though he saw Ash’s fingerless glove clad hand already covered in Buffalo sauce, hovering unsurely about the rest of the chicken wings, he saw no napkins. “Oh dang it,” He let out an exasperated cry and smacked a hand to his forehead, “I forgot them in the other room, here, I’ll get them-,”

He went to stand, but all of a sudden the announcer sprang to life before them.

“Welcome to today’s game of Hockey,” he was saying, voice strong and accented like an old radio star, and speaking just as fast, “We’ve got a very interesting match up today,”

The second announcer interrupted, sounding just as excited as the first, “Thankfully for the Snowpoint Legends, it seems that number 3, Jun Aemilius, is back on the ice, after his injury on Wednesday we were getting worried that he might not be able to make it to the next game, but it seems the medics came through!”

“And based on today’s lineup for the Icirrus Truths, the Legends may have really needed the return. I mean, ever since number 16, Blake Rasmussen, was traded into the team from the Castelia Ideals, the Truths have been rising in power across the league,”

“However, the new goalie for the Legends, number 1, Hareta Rowan, might be able to match Rasmussen’s intensity,”

“Do you know who they’re talking about?” Gary whispered to Ash, who seemed to have given up on napkins and was instead licking his fingers clean. (Seeing this, he quickly flushed red and looked back to the screen, pretending to be looking for clues there, though he hoped Ash would not guess the true reason for his newfound focus. …though it wouldn’t have been a problem if he had known.)

“Number three for the Legends is triplets with one of my rivals from when I was in Sinnoh,” Ash commented, watching as the camera tracked after a very attractive blond offensive player as if it was a totally normal comment to make to his current rival.

Gary suddenly reached for a can on the table, suddenly realizing that his throat felt dry.

“None of that,” Ash waved his hands back and forth, flinging a speck or two of leftover sauce into Gary’s face, “I still love you the most,” he looked down at the cans, “Plus, those are non-alcoholic,”

Gary put his head in his hands, laughing. Had Ash assumed he had been trying to get drunk? “I’m just thirsty Ash,” he said, “and you reminded me of what your mom bought us,”

Ash made a face, studying the cans critically, “I wouldn’t suggest trying those, they’re probably flavored, like, pumpkin pie or crayons or something,”

Gary studied the can in the brightness of the ice from the screen. “The first one,” he told Ash, making a face, “Pumpkin pie seltzer, are you kidding me? Where does she even get them?”

“The Viridian Pokemart I think,” Ash said, snuggling a bit closer to Gary under the guise of checking out the ingredients of the strange drink.

“Why would she go all the way to Viridian to get-,” Gary cut himself off as the game suddenly kicked into action on the screen in front of them. Ash too sat up, suddenly on the edge of his seat as the puck rushed from player to player, currently held by the Truths. Gary glanced over at Ash’s face, noticing that he didn’t look super happy about that fact.

“Soo…” Gary tried, now his turn to scoot closer, “Are we rooting for the Legends?”

“Would you want to root for a team from Unova?”

“Fair point,”

The two sat together, watching as the action moved from player to player, occasional crashes and shrieks coming up from the players as they crashed together and into various metal walls. Gary found himself leaning forward and hissing in anticipation as the puck shot towards the goal on their side, but joined Ash in whooping when the (apparently not-so-rookie) goalie expertly blocked the shot, catching it under his glove and sending up cheers among the crowd on his side of the stadium.

Ash grabbed Gary’s arm and shook him, as if Gary had watched more than a couple of games before to understand quite what that meant for his team. “Did you see that?!” He asked, sounding almost as excited as he always had before their battles, “That was so cool!”

The fact that Gary didn’t quite understand the game did not stop him from sharing Ash’s excitement. (Though he suspected that was more due to the fact that his rival was all but climbing into his lap in nervous joy about the game.)

“Yeah,” Gary said, watching somewhat in awe as the players sped from side to side in the advertisement lined rink.

They continued to watch like that, whooping as number three on their team managed a goal and hissing as 16, Blake, on the other side finally managed one of his own. At one point, their hands met in the chicken wing bowl, and of course Ash couldn’t help but joke that it was the most affectionate they’d been since getting back to Pallet together. (Gary shoved him off his shoulder and laughed it off, but the entire next period passed before he was done blushing about it.)

Advertisements passed as Gary left to refill the snacks, and he found himself grinning with the draw to watch the game as he saw it starting up again.

“You have to admit that this is just as interesting as watching a Pokemon battle,” Ash said, between bites of chicken wing, looking expectantly up at Gary.

“And nowhere near as irritating,” Gary added, breaking off in the middle of his sentence to take a large sip of pumpkin pie seltzer. (Which was honestly even more interesting than Delia had advertised it as being.) “I’m not there picking through every mistake they make,”

They both cringed as, number three, the forward on the team they had decided to root for just barely missed an easy shot.

“For the most part anyway,” Gary corrected

“For the most part anyway,” Ash laughed, agreeing with him.

They looked forward, and the game went back into that comfortable blur as the announcers led the cheers (or boos) as players entered and left the ice. (Though Gary found himself realizing that the two rivals were getting oddly close again as the final period began to wrap up. Even if the “close together” in question was more like, “just about falling off the couch with how focused they were on the flashing screen,”)

They cheered as their goalie blocked yet another would-have-been goal, and then cheered even louder as their team managed to actually complete a goal of their own. They were back in the lead by one, and with only a couple of seconds remaining on the clock, and a major player of the Truths out for misconduct earlier in the match, it was looking good.

“Comeon comeon,” Ash muttered, his fingers digging into Gary’s shoulders as he leaned even further forward, “Just hold the goal for one more-,”

“No!” They both shrieked, watching as their goalie, the one named like his region’s professor, was knocked to the ground by an opposing player, allowing the puck to sail cleanly into the net behind him.

Making the game tied, and sending it into overtime as Ash jolted to his feet, taking two large steps forward and echoing the announcer as he yelped. “How was that not an illegal move!”

Gary stood and walked to meet him, but found his eyes similarly glued to the screen as the teams reset for the tie breaking move. In his still lacking understanding of the game, he couldn’t quite tell what was happening, but the energy in the crowd (and in Ash), was enough to tell him that, whatever it was, it was seriously interesting.

He squinted at the glowing ice, and then found himself jumping up and down as he spotted number three dragging the puck forward and towards the opposing goal. He was moving like lightning, skirting around nearly every other player as he raced for the win.

Ash and Gary watched in slow motion as 16, Blake, from the other team fought to catch up with Jun, and cheered as he crashed into a defenseman from his own team, clearly still at least a little shaken up from his apparent injury on Wednesday as the two skidded across the ice together, their balance lost.

It happened so fast that Gary almost missed it, but the puck banged against the net and the stadium exploded. Even with the TV on low volume, Gary truly felt like he was among the screaming fans as Ash jumped up and down beside him. Clapping his hands together and shivering in excitement. To Gary, the sight was almost funny, but as he opened his mouth to say something about it, he found himself the one taken aback as Ash jumped up and kissed him.

They hung that way for a moment, Gary feeling like he was floating in sudden joy as Ash’s arms wrapped briefly around his shoulders, only to be dragged back away again as his friend suddenly pulled back, face bright red.

“Oh I-,” he tried to explain himself, “I didn’t mean to-,”

Gary’s face was definitely bright red, but he didn’t care. “Well,” he said, grabbing Ash’s hands and leaning forward, “Do it again and I might think about coming back for the next game,”

He smirked as Ash stuttered out a sudden, “I love you,” right before Gary pulled them back into a kiss as the cheers of the crowd echoed through the dark room.

(Even if their mouths tasted like buffalo chicken wings and pumpkin pie seltzer.)

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reides · 6 months

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did you know that generation four of the pokemon games features more ribbons than any other generation? in diamond/pearl/platinum alone, you can get 38 new ribbons - and in hgss, you can add one more to that pile for a whopping 39 ribbons. this is a truly crazy amount of ribbons and i feel like i went a little crazy while gathering them. but, with that being said, i sure did gather them.

this post is all about reides the kingdra's journey through sinnoh, johto, AND kanto!

as a quick aside, you can check out my other ribbon master posts in my ribbon master tag. you can also see the posts on my personal site; those versions have a bit more pictures since they're not Contained by tumblr's limitations.

anyway...!!! my gen4 journey with reides began in my childhood copy of diamond. my trainer - named 'juke' after a handle that i had back in those days - picked up reides at the pal park, along with fangs the salamence, albatross the latios, origin the metagross, persana the suicune, and princess the zigzagoon.

i was really thrilled to finally be using one of my childhood playthroughs; back in gen3, i opted against using my childhood file in sapphire, as i wanted reides' original trainer to be recorded as 'Jamie' - and my sapphire file didn't use that name, either! another bonus to this was that diamond was already in the postgame, so i could get to work on grabbing my sinnoh ribbons as soon as reides made the trip over there.

immediately, i got to work on getting the first of the daily ribbons. these ribbons are very simple to get. all you have to do is talk to a woman named julia - who lives in a little house in northern sunyshore - on each day of the week. each day corresponds to one type of daily ribbon. the first ribbon that reides got was the smile ribbon!

julia is a really sweet character, and i really enjoyed my little routine of popping in and chatting with her. i was able to nab each of these heart-warming ribbons while i tackled other ribbon tasks.

the daily ribbons weren't my only routine, either! i also visited the masseuse over in veilstone ever day so that she could boost reides' affection for my new character. (i understand why affection resets when you trade your pokemon over to a new file, as they're technically a whole new trainer... but it still made me feel a little sad... like, reides. it's me!! it's JAMIE!!! the person who worked SO HARD to get you all those ribbons in gen3!!!)

once reides' affection was maxed out, i went over to... dr. footstep. dr. footstep is a guy who lives on the route outside of pastoria city. his whole deal is that he can read your pokemon's feelings for you by looking at their tracks - even if they don't have tracks. (reides, for example, doesn't have tracks. so, yeah. dr. footstep is... talented?)

an important note about this ribbon is that it actually isn't affection-based from gen5 onwards. instead, it's based on how many LEVELS you gain with the pokemon - becoming attainable when you've raised it at least 30 levels from when you met it. this is obviously deeply horrifying, as it means you can totally miss your chance for this ribbon if you trade a pokemon in that was past level 70 (due to the level 100 cap). an exception to this is if a pokemon is 'voiceless' (e.g. if the pokemon is a magnemite, or a beldum, or one of the regis, etc etc) in which case it... somehow reverts back to being based on friendship.

you'd think that the footprint ribbon would be based on *steps* rather than levels, as not only does that make more sense, but it also prevents poor pokemon from being locked out of it forever... but whatever. it's kind of hilarious that the mark of reides' affection for me is summed up by a ribbon which is essentially A Foot but that's a whole other can of worms.

during all of this, i was also grinding out pokedollars so that i could afford the syndicate ribbons. the ribbon syndicate is located over in a very posh mansion in the resort area of sinnoh. i met the 10-ribbon requirement for entry into the syndicate easily, but i then had to take on the challenge of raising enough pokedollars so that i could afford the hilariously expensive trio of ribbons that they had for sale. i had enough pokedollars to afford the first two - the gorgeous ribbon (10k) and the royal ribbon (100k). the last ribbon, however, was priced at 999,999 pokedollars... namely, the most money your character can carry on them. getting my hands on this ribbon would require some work...

...but admittedly not that much work! by using the vs seeker on an elderly couple on the route right next to the pokemon mansion, you can actually grind pokedollars out super, super easily. they pretty much funded the final syndicate ribbon for me and it really wasn't a painful grind in the slightest. if only real life worked like this...

these side ribbons were honestly a lot of fun to gather as the days went on! they made me wish that we had more stuff like them in future generations, to be honest! i know some people think that they're kind of just 'filler ribbons' which aren't all that meaningful, but i had a great time getting them all. my little talks with julia and my puzzlement over dr. footstep's lore(?) were certainly meaningful to me, and it was pretty awesome to cap out on pokedollars for the final syndicate ribbon! i think ribbons like this offer a unique little break from ribbons that are focused on streaks in battle towers or the standard hall of fame entries, as iconic as those may be.

anyway, on the subject of hall of fame entries... reides obviously had to go grab the sinnoh champion ribbon! i decided to take on the sinnon league with the whole gen3 squad, including princess the zigzagoon.

reides just so happened to be looking RIGHT DOWN into the spotlight in both of these pictures that i took. that wasn't even planned... i guess he just really liked the pretty lights.

with the sinnoh league tackled, the super contests were up next. i was really excited to gather these ribbons, as gen3 made me a HUGEEEE contest fan. with that being said, i knew that sinnoh's contests were a whole lot different from hoenn's contests. despite gathering a TON of accessories for these contests as a kid (THANK YOU, JAMIE OF THE PAST!), i was woefully clueless as to how to win them. i had to do a bunch of research, as the good ol' rest + snore combo wasn't going to carry me through the appeals like it did back in gen3... and i'm very pleased to say that i was able to find a great strategy for winning these things!

the best strategy that i found was provided by Guy_Gin_Smash over on the pokemon ribbon subreddit. it can be found as a reply to this post! i'm attaching a copy of it here just in case that thread is ever made inaccessible in the future, but please go give it an upvote if you use it and it's of help to you, too!

Regardless of the Pokemon, here is my advice for what worked best for me and my Ribbon Masters: ・Move 1: A move that increases in appeal when used first (Thunder Punch, Dragon Claw, Flash Cannon, etc.). This is your "comeback" move when you do poorly in an appeal round. ・Move 2: A move that increases in appeal when performed last (Revenge, Gyro Ball, Assurance, etc.). This is your "Hit while the iron's hot," move. Use this when you do really well in a previous appeal and need a finisher. ・Move 3: Psych Up/Bulk Up/Swords Dance/Dragon Dance/etc. It doubles your next move's score and helps set you up to use Move 1 first in the turn order next turn. Use this when you end up second or third in the turn order. ・Move 4: Protect. It increases in power depending on how low the judge's voltage is, and even on Master Rank there's normally at least one judge with no voltage available to pick. Use this when you get stuck in the second or third turn order -- preferably with a Psych Up boost.

following this template, reides' gen4 contest moveset consisted of hydro pump (part of his learnset), natural gift (bought at the veilstone department store), dragon dance (part of his learnset), and protect (bought at the veilstone department store).

of course, the appeal portion was only one third of the contest itself. i also had to take part in the visual round each time. i wasn't too worried about this, as reides' gen3 sheen transferred over to gen4... which meant that i didn't have to make him a single poffin. like i said before, i also loved gathering the contest accessories as a kid, so i didn't need to grind out any of those either. still, i was sure to skim over this page on serebii, which told me which accessories would score the most points based on the theme provided at the start of the contest. the other part of each super contest was the dancing portion, which was basically just a little rhythm game that didn't really bother me once i got into the swing of things.

i enjoyed these contests a lot, but i do feel like a lot of content was crammed into them. the visual stage in particular is a fantastic addition to the contest format, as i really loved putting accessories on reides, but the time limit that they place on dressing up your pokemon made it unnecessarily stressful at times. with that being said, here are a few costumes that reides wore to various contests.

he's a true model imo.

they were a little bit time consuming, but reides was able to get through these contests pretty painlessly. i didn't lose a single one of them, though i absolutely soft-reset my game every time johanna (the player character's mother) showed up as a fellow competitor. i saw a lot of people say that she posed a huge challenge and i was NOT gonna take my chances. sorry, mom! lmfao.

at this point, reides had a sizeable bulk of the gen4 ribbons... and it was time to face the inevitable. my most dreaded portion of my ribbon master journey: the gen4 battle tower ribbons.

like i said in my gen3 post, this ribbon master challenge is my first foray into the battle tower mechanic in these games. even with my limited experience, i've heard plenty of stories about gen4's battle tower ribbons. all of the tales of streaks breaking due to the ai suddenly 'cheating' had me really nervous - especially since they really ramped up the difficulty in gathering these ribbons for gen4. gen3 had 2 battle tower-related ribbons. gen4, on the other hand, has 6. SIX. i knew i would be here for a while, even if i got lucky and my streaks never broke.

this guy pretty much summed up my thoughts on the matter.

still, i had faith in my team - my beloved companions who made the gen3 battle tower ribbons a lot easier than i thought they'd be. i held my head up high and carried on!!

before entering the tower proper, i knew that i had to change up my team's movesets. gen4 introduced the physical/special split, which meant that the typing of moves no longer dictated if the move was physical or special. for example, BEFORE this split, every single ghost type move was a physical attack move. AFTER the split (i.e. in gen4 and onwards), each move itself was assigned as a physical or special attack regardless of the move's typing. going back to my ghost type example... this meant that you could find ghost-type moves that were special attack moves, too.

my physical attacker, origin the metagross, had to get rid of their shadow ball attack asap, as it became a special attack. i replaced it with zen headbutt but planned on replacing *that* with iron head once i had enough bp for it. i also replaced metal claw with bullet punch. this left them with this moveset:

origin the adamant metagross - earthquake - bullet punch - zen headbutt --> iron head - explosion

as for albatross, i had the opposite problem: his dragon claw was now a physical move. since he is a special attacker, this didn't fit with his stats - so i replaced it with dragon pulse. his final moveset for the battle tower was therefore this:

albatross the timid latios - psychic - dragon pulse - thunderbolt - ice beam

i also refined reides' moveset, getting rid of the moves that i used for the super contests and giving him a set that was more suitable for battle.

reides the bold kingdra - surf - ice beam - dragon pulse - hydro pump

again, as a reminder, i went with a bold nature on my ribbon master kingdra because it suits his personality more! but on the topic of bold legends... i took some time to refine my suicune's moveset, too!

persana the bold suicune - surf - calm mind - rest - sleep talk

i opted to try out a bit of a bulky set for my suicune, since i heard really good things about it!

with my pokemon's moves all sorted out, i walked through the battle tower's doors. first up on the list was the singles tower. i got two ribbons by battling my way through it; one for each time i faced the iconic tower tycoon, palmer. i got the first ribbon - the ability ribbon - after facing him on battle 21, then the other - the great ability ribbon - for facing him on battle 49.

after defeating palmer twice in the singles tower (and being scared half to DEATH while facing his cresselia on battle 49), it was time to take on the doubles tower. i had to win 50 battles in a row there. i'm pleased to say that the metagross + latios combo was still the stuff of legends - though reides and persana also came in clutch MULTIPLE times!

eventually, we got the double ability ribbon, even if we had to face a whole lot of daunting foes during our climb. every time i saw an ice type, i braced myself for a sheer cold inexplicably gaining crazy-good accuracy... and every time i saw a bulky staller, i braced myself for the long wait for those hp bars to go down. sobs.

the third battle tower ribbon that i took on was... a bit of an odd one. you get the multi ability ribbon once you win 50 battles in a row while using an npc as your partner. this meant that my little latios + metagross strategy would no longer be viable, as i would have to rely on another trainer's pokemon to get to 50 wins. i had riley as an option when i took this challenge on, so i decided to pair up with him for the whole tower. he ended up making for an INCREDIBLE partner! in particular, his absol was a huge help. the climb wasn't without its scary moments, but we clutched it out and got through it.

shockingly enough, my streak somehow didn't break at all during my multi ability ribbon climb! given all the horror stories that i heard about this ribbon in particular, i was SUPER relieved. i'm not sure if i got really lucky or if riley is just really, really good - but, either way... thank you riley!!!

once he got the multi ability ribbon, reides' gen4 battle tower conquest came to a sudden halt, though. you see, the remaining two ribbons - the pair ability ribbon and the world ability ribbon - went beyond the scope of my lone file of diamond. the world ability ribbon focused on a wifi-based challenge (which i'll get into later). the pair ability ribbon was similar to the multi ability ribbon, except i would have to get a streak of 50 wins alongside another gen4 file. i couldn't fight along with another npc; it had to be someone i connected with through co-op play. for my purposes, this meant dual-wielding dses. but there was a bit of a catch, here, as - despite owning every other gen4 game, including TWO copies of soulsilver - i didn't have another gen4 game in the post-game like my diamond file. that meant that none of my other gen4 games had access to the battle tower.

upon realizing this, i decided to take the opportunity to replay soulsilver. as i mentioned in my last post, hgss are my favourite pokemon games of all time. you might think that it's odd that i didn't have a fully decorated post-game, in that case - but i have an explanation for that! you see, i loved hgss so much as a kid that i repeatedly transferred out all of my pokemon so that i could replay the plot of the games as much as i pleased. kind of hilarious, i know... anyway, since i also needed to get a ribbon for beating red in hgss' post-game, reides was destined to be part of yet another storyline team.

after planning out my soulsilver storyline team and deciding that i wanted to raise a steelix, i decided to send reides over with a metal coat so that i could evolve an onix early on. pro gamer strats, i know. i picked up a cute little totodile (who i named tapioca!) as my starter and sent reides over to johto as soon as i unlocked trading!

admittedly, i was utterly thrilled to see reides in soulsilver. i didn't care that this would add a HEFTY amount of hours to my ribbon master challenge - not in the slightest!!! being able to explore my favourite region with a pokemon that means so very much to me was a dream come true - especially since hgss has such a flawless implementation of follower pokemon.

i really enjoyed my playthrough and amassed a team that ended up meaning so very much to me. while i kept reides in my party, i obviously didn't use him all that much in battles, as i wanted his younger pals to get experience and catch up with him.

costume the eevee was named after a kid i saw on halloween, who was in a really cute eevee costume! i picked up my eevee that night after the trick-or-treaters left, and my friend cody suggested that i name the eevee after that kid's costume. (fyi, costume ended up evolving into an espeon!)

here are some more pictures of my soulsilver team and me during the course of our amazing journey through johto.

prior to beating the elite four and unlocking the battle tower, i decided to take a little peek at it and instead ran into this guy, who was really, really eager to take on the challenges.

given the sheer amount of grinding that i had been through, along with the amount of grinding that i knew was in my future... i can't say that i shared his enthusiasm. but i respected him for it nonetheless.

eventually, our johto quest led us to the pokemon league. sadly, there is no ribbon linked to beating johto's league and entering its hall of fame, but it was nice to take on everyone regardless.

after a really dramatic showdown against lance in his AMAZING room full of golden dratini statues, we entered johto's hall of fame.

after hours upon hours of time spent in johto, i could finally approach the battle tower again - this time with the goal of getting the pair ability ribbon on reides. grabbing my 3ds, i set up a local wifi room on my copy of diamond (apparently, using a copy of diamond or pearl as the 'leader' means you get to face easier trainers when compared to a platinum or hgss leader) and connected into it on my copy of soulsilver. origin and reides reunited with albatross and persana, and we got ready to get our streak of 50 wins.

the battle tower link multi challenge was actually probably the easiest one i've ever done on the course of reides' journey thus far, though that may have been due to the sheer amount of FOCUS i had on it, LMAO. i really didn't want my streak to break, so i took absolutely zero risks... except for when i had to. and boy, did i have to at one particular point of this climb. on battle 49(!!!), most of my team was knocked out, save for reides. i took a picture, as i wanted to show just how the odds were stacked against my boy. but then... he did something amazing.

reides outsped and took down zapdos with surf (which also dealt damage to registeel), then traded a bunch of attacks with registeel - only to clutch out a win with the luckiest hydro pump i have ever witnessed. he kept the streak alive!! (for context, surf's damage wouldn't have been enough to take down the registeel at that point. if reides' hydro pump missed, registeel would have knocked him out, too.)

soon afterwards, we ended up winning the 50th battle in a MUCH less scary manner - and reides got the pair ability ribbon!

this left me with one last outstanding gen4 battle tower ribbon... the world ability ribbon.

the world ability ribbon is technically unattainable now, as it requires the use of nintendo's now-defunct wifi servers. basically, to get it, you connect to nintendo's servers and download a room consisting of 7 battles. by battling through a bunch of these rooms, you can rank up. once you get to rank 5, your team gets the world ability ribbon. due to the servers' being inaccessible though 'official' means, it's not required for a ribbon master challenge. but people have made fan servers that you can connect to in order to try for the ribbon anyway. the one major drawback to connecting to these servers is that the ds can only connect to wifi hotspots that use either the now-outdated wep security protocol or no security at all. as a result, a lot of people don't really have the means to connect to them... and i was one of these people!

now you might be wondering: why bother with this ribbon if it's not necessary for completing the challenge? the answer is pretty simple. beyond it being a matter of pride, in future generations, all of your pokemon's contest and battle tower ribbons from gen4 and gen3 get consolidated into two memory ribbons. these ribbons are depicted on a silver plaque if you're missing any ribbons and a gold plaque if you managed to get them all. ...so, you're seeing where i'm going with this, right?

people really, really want the gold plaque.

L;FDGKDFL;GK but real talk - pokemon home recently let pokemon with 7 battle ribbons get the gold plaque anyway, so it's just something that people encourage attempting if you have the means. since i didn't have a readily available wifi hotspot that was compatible with the fan servers, i was very much on the fence about taking it on. i decided to procrastinate on making a decision and, instead, wandered out of the battle tower and towards a whole new region: kanto!

the only new ribbon in hgss is the ribbon you get for beating red - and you can only challenge him once you're done with kanto's gym challenge. while journeying kanto and battling these leaders, i also took a bit of a breather in order to complete one of my favourite little sidequests in the pokemon games.

if you collect five of these shiny leaves and put them on your pokemon, your childhood friend back in new bark town will craft them into a beautiful golden crown for your pokemon. unfortunately, no ribbon is attached to completing this sidequest, but it's an absolutely incredible one that also grants you this gorgeous certificate.

empowered by his shiny new crown, reides and i kept up with our kantonian journey - facing each and every gym leader. there's something so special and bittersweet about kanto's status during the johto games. everything is so familiar... but also so different. it was particulary sad to face blaine off in one of the seafoam caverns, as cinnabar had been overrun by a volcanic eruption. but the hope that blaine had for the future of his gym was inspiring, too. it really gave kanto a lot of depth; a sense of its people still having to face challenges, even after your journey as protagonist had ended back in red, blue and yellow.

eventually, we met up with the final gym leader: blue, himself!

upon beating him in battle and getting my 16th gym badge in soulsilver, i gained access to mt silver. i knew that red, the ultimate pokemon trainer, was at the very peak of this lonely mountain teeming with high-levelled pokemon.

i journeyed to the peak as soon as i could. i had every intention of spending a lot of time training in mt silver and even gathered lucky eggs to make the task easier - but, in the end, i couldn't resist challenging red the very moment that i found him.

i'm very, very pleased to say that red still lives up to his status as a legend. his team makes for a very, VERY difficult fight; it's incredibly satisfying to face them all. time and time again, it always lives up to the hype. after duking it out, i managed to emerge victorious... albeit by the skin of my teeth. for being part of the team that won this battle, reides got the legend ribbon.

i was sure to take a picture with the rest of my team during our trek through mt silver, too! without them, this whole journey wouldn't have been possible, after all. we also took a photo together in pallet town, right outside of red's house. since my personal pokemon journey began in kanto with pokemon red version, it was quite the emotional shot. i was really happy to have such a great team with me!

this marked the end of my soulsilver storyline playthrough, but i wasn't quite done with gen4 just yet. i was finally at the world ability ribbon crossroads. feeling emotional over my progress up to this point, i decided that i would try to take it on, as i wanted reides to get that gold plaque from gen6 onwards and i didn't want to bypass an optional ribbon unless i absolutely HAD to do so. this meant that it was time to research just how the hell i would connect to those fan servers.

eventually, i found a thread on the ribbon master subreddit talking about an incredibly simple method of connecting to them. they said that you could use a flashcart or homebrewed 3ds to inject your save into your pc. from that point on, you just needed to run your save on the melonds emulator and use its wifi feature to connect to the dns featured on the poke classic network. (it's also worth noting that you need a rom that's been patched for online play - you can use the wfc patcher to do this). i decided to give this a try, as, before this point, i had no idea that emulators even supported wifi without a billion complicated workarounds. even if it didn't work out, it was super interesting to me.

...and, hilariously enough, it worked out on my very first try! i seriously felt like the 'technology is incredible!' guy who lives in every single starting town of every single pokemon game. i found myself suddenly having the means of getting this elusive ribbon despite gen4's servers being defunct. how incredible is that?! i couldn't be more grateful to the people maintaining those fan servers.

the setup was the first part of my world ability ribbon challenge, though. as awesome as it is to be able to connect to the wifi rooms, those rooms are also NOTORIOUS for being filled with hacked pokemon. popular ones include machamps with the no guard ability (which means that its moves never miss) running sheer cold (a move that can ohko your pokemon; they typically have a very rare chance of hitting) and spiritombs with wonder guard (an ability that makes it so only super effective moves can damage the pokemon with it; spiritombs in gen4 have no weakness).

there are ways to counter these hacked pokemon, however. you can outspeed machamp before it can land sheer cold (or run a focus sash on your pokemon, which will make it survive a sheer cold with 1hp), and you can also decimate spiritombs with wonder guard if you use fire fang against it (fire fang SOMEHOW bypasses wonder guard in gen4; a little happy mistake of a glitch, haha).

in an incredible moment of serendipity, i also found a counter-meta team for these hacked pokemon which included latios AND metagross! i was thrilled, since i already had albatross and origin all trained up. while i had to steal a shuca berry from a wild ponyta trotting about on mt silver, that was easily done. i started training up a garchomp, too... but then i got lazy while ev training him and ended up trying out the rooms with reides instead of a fire fang user. (i'm well aware that this was a really big risk LMAO - if i ran into a single hacked spiritomb, i'd have to take an immediate L and raise that garchomp before facing the room again.)

in selecting the rooms that i wanted to challenge, i opted to download those in the late 20s to 30s range, as those rooms are said to have less hacked pokemon within them. i wasn't sure if that was just a rumor, but i tried it out anyway.

in the end, i had a blast. i really liked seeing everyone's nicknamed pokemon in the rooms that i downloaded. i'm not sure if it's because of the 'late 20s to 30s range' strat or what, but i ran into ONE single hacked pokemon, who i will now proceed to shame:

YEAH. I BET YOU'RE SORRY.

luckily, 'i'm sorry' the machamp wasn't a threat and he didn't get a single sheer cold off on my team. he did, however, land a will o wisp on origin, which had me wondering if he was even running sheer cold to begin with? either way, we beat him up real good!!!

i don't want give that machamp the only shoutout re: this ribbon, though! i also want to show off some of the pokemon that i ran into while working towards rank 5. i believe these pokemon are also taking on the ribbon master challenge.

this is only a small selection of the pokemon that i saw, but i still really loved to meet them all. it made me a bit emotional, too, as i thought about future ribbon masters running into reides the kingdra. :') i can also vouch 100% for the anti-hack team that i posted; if you're struggling with getting this ribbon, definitely give that team a try!!

after grinding through these rooms, my team eventually hit rank 5. reides got the world ability ribbon... the 6th and final gen4 battle tower ribbon, which was also the final ribbon of his gen4 journey.

as you can tell from this absolutely massive post, gen4 was a journey and a half. my god. i'm well aware that most of my time spent in this generation was likely during my soulsilver playthrough, as i wanted to raise a proper team and take my time with the experience, but oh my goodness gracious. i should've known it would've been a monumental task, given the sheer amount of ribbons available... but it still took me by surprise. no regrets, tho. none at all.

i sent reides (and the rest of the pals accompanying him on this ribbon master quest!) to unova, which doesn't have any ribbons. this quick stop-over was still necessary in order to put everyone in pokemon bank, though! once they were there, i sent them over to kalos. at the moment, reides is chillin' and getting ready to take on the generation 6 portion of this quest. in particular, i'm excited to take him to omega ruby, as i got him in emerald version and he's a hoenn baby!

so, yeah! that's how reides' journey though sinnoh and johto played out! i'm super excited to keep on going with this ribbon master journey. just like i said last time, i hope that you'll keep on cheering him on, too!!!

#pokemon #ribbon master #jamietxt #GEN 4 UPDATE YEAHHHHHH #reides the kingdra

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peccaberry · 7 months

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Okay so I'm sure by now a lot of my followers are aware that I lost my LOA file when my switch decided to fry itself and I've started a new file right? Well I was kinda bummed about just having to redo everything the normal way so I decided to have some fun (read: completely waste my time) and do a little challenge.

I wanted to see how far up the ranks it was possible to go with just the first unlocked area of Obsidian Fieldlands and it turns out the answer is solidly "Rank 8" which is absolutely hilarious, especially when the poor guard asks to see if you're at least rank 1. Yeah buddy I think qualify...

Was this a huge waste of time? Absolutely. Was it important to me to figure out just how high ranking of a Galaxy team member you could be before even meeting a member of the Diamond/Pearl clans? Yes. Rank 8 is near the top of the possible rank you could hold and if anyone wants to use this fact in their fanfiction or whatever I just want you to know it's justified.

Your protag would have to be as absolutely batshit as I am and go through every single possible task as well as try to bait quite a few Magicarp and Gyradoes to shore with berries (something I'm very much not convinced was intended to be able to do from the shore of Lake Verity from how much the AI freaks out about it and how they are very rarely even close enough to even notice the berries)

For a visual reference of the surface area of Pokemon territory I had to work with here is a map with the areas I could go highlighted. I also never did any trading with anyone to be completely clear this was all just in game.

Most of it besides the lake baiting was pretty straightforward, lots of grinding and just checklist stuff but the most interesting thing was that while I managed to get plenty of fire stone drops from mining I only ever got one thunderstone.

This was really exciting for me because it allowed me to evolve an Eevee into a Jolteon and do the tasks for it which actually ended up being pretty vital to being able to finish this without trying to do more baiting for Magicarp/Gyradoes (a very difficult thing to pull off constantly tbh) but like.... Why just the one? I had assumed by that point only fire stone drops were even possible at this stage in the game but clearly that's not true. If anyone can explain that to me I'd be interested to hear it.

Anyway if you liked this and appreciate the effort please consider sharing this because I put an embarrassing amount of effort into it. Thank you 🙏

#peccaspeaks #pokemon #peccaplays #pokemon legends of arceus #pokedex #pokedex challenge #Hisui #Obsidian Fieldlands #pokemon fandom

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deepseacityunderground · 3 months

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i did a pokeymon tierlist that took me three hours to do ;-;

i put it and explainations under a cut because its so big lmao. if you want it to not be blurry then open it seperately in desktop idk

lesbian tier: self explainatory (ill explain why i like them so much later)

my babies: good designs, sentimental, AND i like fighting with them

sentimental tier: various favs across the years, theyre more individuals than species to me because of my memories with these guys.

i wish pokemon were real: for pokemon that make me say "i wish pokemon were real"

ebic: i like them lots and i like to have them on my team

the funny little creatures: i smile when i see them and i like them

intriguing: hmm there is something here... but i'm not quite getting it maybe?

not rlly interested: this one is self explainatory... if ur fav is here im sorry :( im sure these guys are cool i just dont rlly think about them ever

fucked up: i dont like seeing them they make me uncomfortable

scyther was my first partner in my first pokemon game :) it was diamond. i overtrained scyther way too much and he (because it was a boy scyther) would do that thing where he doesnt listen in battle so i build his entire moveset around it. he was lost when i transferred him to heartgold and then dropped heartgold in some water. rip scyther always in my heart

togekiss was my friend alongside scyther. she was the first pokemon i ever trained up to lv.100. she was also a victim of the heartgold incident. rip togekiss always in my heart.

absol was the only one from my initial gamebeating diamond team to survive the incident. she was transferred over to my copy of platinum and after i ended up losing diamond, remained there happily. i dont want to transfer her to bank or home because i think itd be like moving an old cat to a new house. i dont want to upset her at her old age. also absol's design fucks. emo fringe lynx. absol is what sparked my emotions about dark types. also i played pmd1 as a kid.

gengar is gengar. also i played pmd1 as a kid and read a copious amount of fanfic focused around pmd1 gengar (everyone go read pmd victory fire now it doesnt even matter that its on forever hiatus and ended with a cliffhanger go read it)

the tentacool variations are here purely out of sentimentality. when i was much younger, id let my little sister borrow my copies of the gen 4 pokemon games. she was really young and didnt really care about rpgs in general at the time, so shed always just explore and catch random pokemon instead of actually playing the games. one time, after i got the games back from her, i looked in my pc and saw like. two full boxes of tentacool and tentacruel that shed caught. and they've all got nose themed nicknames like "nosey" or "nosenose" and other stuff like that. so apparently she was surfing about and saw a tentacool for the first time and was just. obsessed with how they looked and thought they looked like big noses (with the red spots being like nostrils i think) and just decided to catch loads and loads of them because she liked them so much. so it became an inside joke between us. i dont really have much in common with my sister anymore and our relationship is pretty cold rn but pokemon is the one thing we still hold in common. and ill always associate tentacool with her.

we all know why grovyle is where he is. same with dusknoir. theyre also good designs.

i really dont like enamourus because its fucked up how they designed three big buff genie men and then made one that was pink and skinny. awful. makes me angry. if they were buff theyd be one of my favs tho.

i really dont like the pla designs for dialga and palkia... theyve already both got very busy designs and i think these forms are Too Busy. i really wanted to like them but well... i look at giratinas two forms and cry over what could have been.

i dont like the tumblr sexyman lizard.

a lot of pokemon are in higher tiers cus theyre based on animals i like... i like a lot of cat pokemon for this reason. also i like the litten line cus it fucks. and my litten in sumo was a female and i like the idea of big buff wrester catgirl :3 incineroar is a really good design and shes big and strong... whats not to love.

also, i generally like a lot of designs which other pokemon fans dislike... i especially love more humanoid/furry "feminine" designs like primarina, lilligant, gardevoir, lopunny, tsareena, etc etc... i really dislike how a lot of these designs are just seen as like sexygirl designs by the community... sadly porn will exist of everything but these pokemon are also creatures. theyre animals. they may look a bit like a girl but they are still magic animals. like one time in moon i had a whole team of grass girlies and it was just fun to hang out with my funny grass lady creatures.

i like giratina because theyre a big ass antimatter caterpillar. drawing giratina helped me draw antropomorphic caterpillars actually. i like their big ass legs.

all eeveelutions are CATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the lunar duo are my ultimate fav pokemon forever as a team for a big mix of all the other reasons. partly its sentimentality, cus i really liked them as a kid and i would always chill on fullmoon island in my copy of platinum and just listen to the music, i also always tried to do the void glitch to get darkrai but i always fucked up and never quite saw her! (i couldnt do the event cus living in shitty rural region reasons) i also liked battling with them in oras :3 i think their designs are very well done. they remind me of the "swan" series by hilma af klimt specifically, which is a series i really liked on its own. i dont think that was intentional, but i was looking at the work about a year or so ago for an essay and i sorta realized how well the overall color palette of that series matches the pair and cresselia specifically, because shes based on a swan ofc. and ofc darkrai is also birdlike but in a more abstract way. she actually reminds me a bit of the skeletons of one of those really fucked up breed pigeons with the receeded necks and huge fantails and tiny beaks and weird spindly legs. i also really like how unabashedly edgy darkrai's design is... i feel a lot of nostalgia for edgy character designs from the mid 2000s which were edgy in a very un-selfaware way (another reason why i like absol specifically and also like. so many ghost and dark types) and as an angsty kid i always used to gravitate towards those designs lol. i also think its kinda romantic, the idea of a creature which kills others simply by being around them, a typhoid mary type creature, which isolates itself due to that, with its only friend also being the only creature that negates its negative affects. and also that creature killed a kid in america (fucked up). thats how i interpret their relationship. anyway ive been having lots of thoughts about them for like over 15 years.

this is unrelated but its kinda annoying when ppl use gendered pronouns for genderless pokemon... its not gonna ruin my days its just. funny lol (ignore that i have used she/her for darkrai throughout this entire comment... when i do it, its ok <3) one of the sad flaws of the pmd series imo bcus the mainline games dont do that at all.

in general i think my likes and dislikes are more dictated by character design/sentimentality as opposed to ability in battle or fanservice or competitive meta ... this is just part of being a longtime fan who doesnt rlly keep up with the community anymore methinks. im kinda beating myself up for not putting more complex thought into this buuut also i wanna be true to myself yknow... but then again this community sucks so i feel like im gonna be attacked for putting idk wingull too low or something lol

#please dont hate me if i put your fav low... this is just my personal opinion!#all creatures are wonderful in their own way <3 <3 <3

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roxannarambles · 12 days

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Finally finished playing Legends: Arceus-- the main storyline, at least, I have not completed the full Dex, but I did everything else. Some thoughts below.

So, there's a lot this game has going for it. There are lots of lovely natural environments to run around in and explore, and the pokemon really do feel integrated into a complete world, full of personality and ways of interacting with them you just don't get in other games. The controls feel good, the mounts are very fun to use, the aesthetic is on point, and the story's pretty fun. Crafting is a neat addition to the game, there's plenty of side-quests, and there's some interesting new battle mechanics. Overall, they switch things up from the mainline games and try a lot of new things, which I do commend them for.

But, um. Here's the thing. I really hate the gameplay, for the most part. Which is why I bought the game and really, really wanted to enjoy it, and I tried several times to play through, but each time I got so intensely bored I just couldn't go through with it. Don't get me wrong, catching pokemon and using berries and stun items and other stuff feels good, and it feels fun. For like, the first hour. But you have to keep doing it.

Over and over and over.

I just don't enjoy catching a billion pokemon and grinding out other research tasks, like beating up on wild pokemon in various ways, using a specific move a certain number of times, etc. It's so mindless and dull and grindy and boring. You know how PokemonGo is mostly just . . . catching pokemon? Yeah. That gets old, I hate that. I can see how it's just chill and relaxing for some people, but it just isn't for me. I did my damned best to get into it, I promise, but I never did. It was a slog the whole way.

I tried to make it more interesting to me by doing a "bug only challenge." I was only allowed to catch and use bug types, the whole game. (The exceptions are plot-required catches: namely, the Tutorial pokemon and a Dusknoir at some point in the main storyline) And it . . . was sorta nice, I guess? But it didn't do much to make it more fun to me. In some ways it made it even more of a slog since it's harder to earn Star Ranks when you're severely limiting the species you catch. Still, I'm kinda proud I was able to do it, I guess?

Trainer battles in the game are frustrating, too, due to their rarity. You do have battles in the game, and new battle mechanics to try out, too, which gives you a desire to have battles-- especially since it can break up the monotonous research tasks. However, battles are so incredibly rare, and typically incredibly, incredibly easy and are over in almost an instant. You never get to really use the pokemon you've trained. And I get it, the emphasis of the game is research, not battling, since battling is still in its infancy in this era. It still feels frustrating though. I craved battles.

I didn't get to ever feel attached to my team, either. Since most of the game involves research tasks, a lot of those tasks involve battling against wild pokemon. If I used my main team for all that, they'd get way overlevelled in a hurry. So I was always using different individuals. I hardly ever saw my main team, so I did not get the chance to bond with them emotionally-- especially since we rarely had trainer battles anyway.

I didn't feel attached to most of the characters in the game either, to be frank. This isn't any fault of the writing, I actually think the writing was very strong in this game, this is more of just a personal preference. The Pokemon Professor is fine enough, but I never got over the disgusting pube-hair look he has going on his face (I am allowed to dislike characters for shallow reasons, okay). Rei was okay, but I certainly didn't feel fond over him. The leaders of the Pearl and Diamond clans were okay I guess, but the 'arguments' about time and space were so fucking stupid and took up most their screen time, so it kind of ruins them. I just, I dunno, I didn't feel strongly about any of them.

Except for Volo. I always liked him. (The moment I saw him I hoped he was a butch lesbian and got all excited. When I found out he was a dude I was a bit disappointed but oh well, he's still pretty) He was friendly and charismatic and I appreciated his curiosity and his wanderer's spirit.

It's a shame I didn't play and finish the game when I first bought it, because then I might not have been spoiled to Volo's little twist at the end. But, finding out Volo's heavy involvement in the game and the twist at the end was what motivated me to bother finishing the game, so. There's that. I really don't think anything else would have motivated me, because the gameplay was just such a slog for me.

I am glad I bothered to finish the main story, though. It was interesting. I do love the premise of people being very wary and frightened of pokemon and exploring that kind of world. Portraying pokemon in a scarier role was a bold move for the franchise and I love them exploring that side. I LOVE pokemon chasing after you and attacking you directly and the 'alpha' pokemon mechanic and the spookiness of it all. And the story is honestly a neat one. The idea of MC being displaced in time and space and having to work for their room and board has a cozy-survival feel to it, and the deep mistrust of everyone and slowly earning their respect was interesting. Although I did feel actively annoyed that no matter how much work I did, and how many requests I fulfilled, people still often treated me with mistrust. But I think that was the point, to be honest!

When you quell the final Noble and the sky goes boom, that's when things get truly fun, though. I love that Kamado turns on you, which was not too surprising since he'd been one of the ones who really banged on and on about mistrusting you the most. I LOVE the short scene of showing you being walked out of the village as you're banned. I LOVED the feeling of being suddenly on your own, and I LOVE that both Pearl and Diamond clans turned their backs on you so that they wouldn't risk war with Galaxy. And who is there when you have no one else to turn to, alone in the wilderness, when you need a friend the most?

Volo.

He brings you to Cogita, where she fulfills the heavy burden of Exposition Lady. The years of bearing that burden of Exposition have turned her tired and a little snippy, apparently (in truth she's only snippy with Volo, and I think it's because she senses a bad aura, but from an innocent standpoint it seems needlessly snippy, since Volo's Mask is a genuinely nice guy and he's given a nearly flawless performance). I don't know if Cogita was even needed for the story, since Volo's specialty is myth research and he could have easily given us that exposition and also given us a neutral ground to shelter at while the other clans turned their backs on us. But whatever, they wanted a Cynthia ancestor, I can understand that. Dang her house was pretty to look at, and the music there was great. They really put effort into that part.

And then you go and forge the red chain and climb the mountain and . . . potato guy? Why are you here? Oh, he's randomly a ninja. Actually, that part was hilarious and I loved it, I had a grudge against Beni the ENTIRE game because he didn't want to serve me his stupid mochi, so I was so excited to kick his ass. And the extra lore was nice, not to mention the extremely rare chance to have a battle. Anyway, after that, you battle the boss and then take care of the scary Legendary pokemon and all that jazz, and the story . . . ends. Rather abruptly, to be honest. It felt a bit sudden, as if Act 2 was cut a little short. I think it's because the post-game is still what you'd call the main story. Post-game content normally is extra, bonus stuff, but man, if you skip the post-game plot in Arceus, you'll be missing a whole chunk of actual story. Tbh I think they shouldn't have rolled credits 'til the end of the Volo battle, but that's nitpicking. Besides, it amuses me to think some people stopped after the credits and never learned the truth about Volo, which is just a hilarious thought.

Act 3 takes place after a festival celebrating the fact MC saved the world and the Diamond and Pearl clans no longer need to fight (sadly, we don't get to see the festival though!! other than a tiny photo in the credits!) It's pretty short and mostly running around doing errands involving facing off against legendaries and mythicals; the most satisfying errand was a rematch with Kamado because it was a trainer battle aaaaaa!! So few of those. And then we climb the mountain again because Volo, um, really wants to meet the creator's 'unwanted child' for some reason . . . sounds like a good idea right??

The battle with him was fun. Having Cynthia's banger theme was hype, didn't expect it. I was doing the bug challenge run, my team was levels ~60-65, and I beat him on my first go, down to my last pokemon, Heracross on full health.

And then he brings out Giratina without letting me heal. Ahaha, uhhm.

Thankfully I had a lot of Max Revives stuffed in my bag which I FINALLY had a use for. The second phase for Giratina was not expected, so that was a fun surprise, but I scraped by on a few more max revives and careful juggling, and we won. (I dunno what happens once you meet Arceus itself, because I think I need to 100% the Dex for that to happen, but presumably our character can finally return home.)

Was it a good game? Yes, objectively speaking, definitely. I think Legends: Arceus was a very strong game. The writing was very good, and that's a precious rarity in Pokemon games. The world itself was carefully designed, polished, pretty, and felt like truly exploring nature and encountering pokemon, in a unique and refreshing way. The gameplay tried something very new and it generally implemented its intentions very well-- it felt fun to control the character, to throw pokeballs, to craft and collect items, to use mounts, and go up against the Nobles. The story and the universe cast pokemon in an exciting new perspective.

It's just a shame that a million grindy research tasks are so utterly boring to carry out, because the main thrust of the game and what you spend the most time on just plain sucked for me to do. So much so, that I did not enjoy most of my experience playing this game. But oh well, what can you do?

#pokemon legends arceus #legends arceus #pokemon #mystuff

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hapuriainen · 2 months

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Now that I've played at least one game in every Pokemon region, it is of course time for a ranking. Though note that the criteria is less based on how "good" I think the games are objectively and more on, like, vibes and such and if I have good memories of playing.

10. Sinnoh - This was the only gen I skipped when it came out because I didn't have a ds and didn't know how to emulate one, and when I finally did get one, Black & White were already out and Gen 4 was old news. But a while ago I did play Brilliant Diamond and really didn't have a good time at all. At that point everything felt extremely by-the-numbers and dated and I can't think of anything that this game offered that I didn't already get from the other titles. Some of the Gen 4 Pokemon are nice but it also has so many legendaries, which I really don't like as a concept (I mean I don't like it when the game tells me which Pokemon I'm supposed to find special and interesting). Also not a fan of the art style in the remake and I find Barry incredibly annoying.

Almost all of the BDSP customisation options were S-tier and Cynthia made for a great boss, but that's about it.

9. Kanto - I was there for the first anime episode so I have a lot of nostalgia for the early days for the franchise, even though I didn't get to play the original GB games. And when I did get Yellow on an emulator I already had Gold, which already covered Kanto so why bother? By now I've played Let's Go Eevee though and didn't really enjoy myself. The Kanto story is so nothing, and the motion controls just kill the whole thing for me. Also Trace is the worst rival character.

Most of my apathy towards Kanto is its overuse though, like the franchise has done interesting things beyond the original 151 but always when there's new forms or a major character hails from a different continent or whatever, its always Kanto and I've grown sick of it.

8. Galar - There are some characters I really like, but otherwise the Galar games felt pretty hollow. There's a lot of cool looking locations but there isn't any substance to them and you can't do anything in them, and the open area was a great concept but you can't do anything in it either. The giant forms don't do a lot for me either since I tend to prefer small and cute Pokemon so making them bigger and more ""badass"" usually doesn't work for me.

Out of all the Switch titles I like the Galar art direction best (as in how the characters look) at least.

7. Alola - I remember there being a lot of talk how the Alola games supposedly shook up the formula because they didn't have gyms, but, like, they totally had gyms, they were just outdoors and had a different name. My main memories of playing Moon are about being constantly interrupted by handholding and the unbearable Rotom Dex, and even with the setting being something completely different from usual, I barely remember anything about it. The customisation was surprisingly boring too and I couldn't care less for Z-moves or Ultra Beasts. Lillie is super cute though and Team Skull was a lot of fun and regional forms are an excellent idea, even if it was wasted on Kanto only in this generation.

6. Hoenn - I had Sapphire on an emulator and later a Alpha Sapphire, and I must say I didn't manage to finish either (I think I didn't even make it out of Mauville in that run), which is why I debated if I should put the Alola games higher just because I made it almost to the end there. But in the end I think Gen 3 did a lot more for the franchise, the berries, contests, secret bases, abilities and double battles are great. I don't have a lot of motivation to go back and finish Alpha Sapphire, all the surfing really doesn't sound inspiring, "too much water" isn't just a meme! Though maybe I should try at least.

5. Kalos - Now we get to the games where my feelings are a lot more positive. I remember being super stoked for the 3d graphics, and somehow for the fact that your character could sit down on a bench (???). The customisation is also great and roller skating was a fun way to get around. The story was pretty weak though and I really don't like the bland rival friend group. I dunno man, the more I think about it, the harder it is to think about things that actually matter to the gameplay experience that I really like, but regardless I have pretty good memories of Y.

4. Unova - White was my first game on an actual console (and not an emulator) so that alone makes it special to me. It's hard to come up with anything specific about the gameplay this time around either, but I remember having a good time, the world was fun to explore, N was a great rival and the story was good too. And the Big City of the region was amazing (and so was Kalos' for that matter) and the changing seasons made for beautiful graphics.

3. Paldea - The graphics were ugly and the performance was a mess, but I like nonlinear open world games okay? And honestly even that didn't work properly since the gym levels didn't scale and I unintentionally did the easiest gym fourth so I was stupidly overleveled, and the world wasn't that interesting to explore either. But I still had a decently good time and also the game had been patched by the time I got around to playing it so I didn't encounter that many bugs.

Also points for making the friendly rival and box art legendary into something I actually liked for once, the school stuff was fun (would've liked even more), the Arven story line is one of my favourite Pokemon stories, and the Area Zero part was great. And overall the game managed to make the overused "beat 8 gyms and deal with the evil team and local legendary" plot feel somewhat fresh.

2. Johto - The Kanto nostalgia pandering doesn't work on me, but Johto sure does. Gold was my first Pokemon game and I have so many good memories playing it, especially the nighttime Goldenrod city with the 8-bit music is my jam. I would also say that for its time it has been the best improvement on what came before, and of course it's the only time we get two games (or maybe 1,5) for the price of one instead of the other way around with the inclusion of Kanto. Then there is HGSS which contains still the best implementation of follower Pokemon. The story and characters will improve from here and the old gameplay jank doesn't really motivate me to revisit the games but they will always have a special place in my heart.

1. Hisui - There really isn't any contest here, the gameplay is simply so much better in LGA than in any of the others. Catching and battling Pokemon is so streamlined, the HM equivalents are useful and make exploring more enjoyable rather than being glorified keys, and the story is different for once. And I said I like nonlinear open world games but this is fine as well, when you get a huge area to explore at once, even when they're unlocked in an order. Like what I have an issue with is if you can't take three steps without running into an unskippable NPC scene or some arbitrary roadblock.

I do have issues though, the Pokemon box and Pokedex menu fiddling is atrocious and a way bigger issue here than in any of the other games since there's a lot more incentive to catch and use different Pokemon, I don't really like the art direction, and the customisation options suck and I had to use 90% of the default look for the whole game. But regardless I would really like it if the franchise went into this direction in the future.

#pokemon #ramble ramble #just in time before the Presents in an hour

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barbwalken · 1 month

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For Cyrus Pokemon 👀

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

And I need to ask you this about Ganondorf:

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

I don't know haha. Cyrus is very different from the type of characters that I like (Giovanni is more like my archetype of fave XD) but with Cyrus a big part of why I like him so much as a character has to do with Pokespe and his interactions with Diamond and how he developed in the story (that part where he throws fists with the fucking champion and then the gym leaders is awesome). Also, because in games there is not a lot of info about him (only enough to understand his context) there are many ways to interpret him and I think other games (USUMO and pokemas) did a great job with his character. I love him, he is my boy 💙

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

Hmmm I don't like it when he is represented as a victim 🤔. Like yeah it sucks his parents neglect him, but it also sucks to have the emotions of people erased because the dude can't deal with his emotions. I could also say I don't like how sometimes people underestimate how far he is willing to go just to do what he wants, he is not a good person. But that also depends on which version of Cyrus we are talking about

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

I was going to say I don't know, but then I remembered Hajime Saito from Rurouni Kenshin, they are so similar in the way they act so cold and indifferent towards their enemies-made friends by certain circumstances, and they say they won't help them, but help them anyway (at least pokemas cyrus). He also reminds me of Piccolo in that way too

And I need to ask you this about Ganondorf:

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

Oh I was like 11 or 12 yo when I first played OoT, and that was my first Zelda game. I remember the scene where he is riding the black horse through the fucking flames and I was like "Wow how extra. Who's that guy". He is been my favorite Zelda character since then. Also, the scene were he get out from all the castle hubris and transforms into ganon is so damn cool. Also, his voice in oot was so cool too, is my fave ganondorf voice, even if he doesn't have lines haha.

#thank you for asking :D

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adobe-outdesign · 1 year

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Have you done opinios for the sv starter evolutions yet? What are your thoughts on Meowscarada? I think it gives more 2nd evolution than final

In my opinion, I think this gen's starters and their evos are pretty strong as a whole, with some good middle evos to boot. I really like Floragato here in particular—I'd almost consider running it with an everstone if Fuecoco didn't exist.

If you read my review of it, you'll recall I found Sprigatito to be nicely designed but a bit generic, with no particular theme to speak of and pretty standard grass-type visuals. Floragato fixes that by standing up (while still retaining stocky, cat-like anatomy) and adding in some darker coloration to hint at its eventual typing, which adds just enough visual spice that it starts to feel more unique.

What I particularly like about it is the yo-yo. It's a simple enough visual, but it's super fun and gives Floragato something unique to it and it alone, preventing it from falling into the "middle stage that only exists to transition between A and B" trap that many middle evos do. More importantly, it hints at its trickster nature that leads into it gaining dark typing and a magician theme when it evolves.

My only visual nitpick, which I'll get into more with Meowscarada, is that the neutral green is completely unnecessary; everything that color could just be the dark green and nothing would be lost. It's particularly bothersome on the front leaf, which suddenly changes color with no reason why. Other than that, however, I think this design is solid.

I remember really not caring for Meowscarada when it was first leaked, but looking at the official art via scans, it's much better than I gave it credit for initially. I think the problem is that it has kind of a janky in-game model, which has a weird mouth and slightly too-round eye shapes that throw it a bit.

Anyway, as a whole, I do think it's got the right idea. Despite it being a magician Pokemon of sorts with maybe some carnival elements, it very specifically reminds of a pierrot (poofy "sleeves", neck ruffles, diamonds over the eyes, small pinched mouth) crossed with a jester (the mask and cheek fur).

I also mentioned in my original review that I hoped they were going for an Iberian Lynx kind of thing, and that ended up being true with the cheek scruff, short tail, and paw shapes. I do wish they worked the lynx ear tufts into the mask, but it's nice to have a lynx Pokemon that actually somewhat looks like a lynx and not a lion.

Visually, Meowscarada makes sense as a final evo; the mask comes from the dark parts of Sprigatito's and Floragato's faces, the cheek fur was always there as were the pink accents, the cape is derived from Sprigatito's neck leaf, etc. It doesn't suddenly change themes or visuals out of nowhere, and everything in the design makes sense as a logical conclusion to the line.

So why don't I feel more strongly about it? I think my big problem is the colors. It has four colors in its palette: pink, green, green, And Green. The "middle" shade of green is unnecessary, and only serves to lower the contrast of the design (this is especially noticeable with the diamonds on the mask, which blend into the rest of it). I also feel like the mask is too big and too rigid compared to the cheek fur, and the perfectly round "cuffs" near the paws make its arms look swollen instead of fluffy.

Here's a small edit I did to try to show what I mean visually (original on right):

I adjusted the mask shape to be a little more jester-like and made the paws dark green with fur cuffs so they parallel the legs visually. I also removed the middle green for higher contrast, and redistributed the pink to put focus on the cape, which is more important to the design than stuff like the paw pads.

I know all that's pretty nitpicky stuff, but it's the nitpicky stuff that kind of throws this design for me and makes me like Floragato more. It's not bad—but it could've been a better with just a bit of refinement and simplification.

As a whole, I'd say the Sprigatito line is pretty strong; it has a clear theme, logical typing, and a clear visual through line. Each stage also has their own unique attributes that make them both stand out and work as a whole. I do think Meowscarada's design could've stood to have a few tweaks made in the color department, but it's otherwise one of the stronger starter lines we've gotten in recent years.

#floragato #meowscarada #pokemon #pokemon reviews #outdesign attempts to edit

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kafus · 5 months

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and now a GAMEPLAY UPDATE from yesterday...

MORE POKEDEX COMPLETION BABEY whoops i uploaded these totally out of order but it doesn't really matter. after getting the surf HM from cynthia's grandma, instead of progressing to canalave city i backtracked through every location in the game where i could surf and unless i forgot something i've now picked up every item, caught every pokemon, and fought every trainer in all currently accessible locations before iron island? if i'm forgetting anywhere rest in peace i guess

worth noting that on the route i caught that gastrodon, i was just going for the 5% tentacruel but i somehow ran into the 1% gastrodon on the same route TWICE before i found a single tentacruel. that was wack lol. and also the pelipper was a 1% below sandgem town, and i didn't feel like grinding for the 1% as it was towards the end of my play session yesterday and i was tired, so i caught a level 30 wingull on the same route and exp share'd it on some wild mons for a bit until it evolved. close enough SFDKFSD

i did eventually make it to canalave, i got the gender difference upgrade to my dex in the route connector into canalave and it seems it's not just cynthia, Everyone is kinda opening their eyes to Hmm this is concerning... oh and i defeated barry, found out my team is pretty weak into fighting types but that's my bad LOL

i unfortunately did not take any more pictures while exploring yesterday because i was focused on my call but that's okay i had a good time

i will say that last night i went to check out the belt dude for the first time and he wanted a pokemon that was level 80... something, i don't remember, but obviously i do not have a pokemon even close to that high so i wasn't able to grab the black belt. today he wanted a level 39 pokemon though, and my luxray was literally 2 EXP away from leveling to 39, so i walked back outside the house, defeated a single wild pokemon, walked back inside and got the black belt LOL

anyway today i checked all my honey trees, still no munchlax... it's not like i expect the munchlax, i know i'll be at this for a long time, i don't even know which four trees are my munchlax trees, BUT whenever i do get it i will pop the fuck off.

it's also worth mentioning that i've been following the serebii daily events list for platinum since it's easy to check if i forgot everything, but serebii is missing one!! or kinda two depending on how you look at it. i realized this today. there's a guy in amity square who will give you an amity square accessory or berry everyday if you enter in from the right side and do a series of teleportations in the huts. there's also recurring items on the ground:

Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum introduced recurring Honey, in Floaroma Meadow. The Honey regenerates in one of the positions in which it was originally collected by the player, at a rate of two Honey per day. Some of the Star Pieces hidden in Iron Island regenerate daily. These games also featured a daily recurring Reaper Cloth, Rare Bone, or Stardust in Turnback Cave.

^ from bulbapedia's page on recurring items.

i still haven't fully fine-tuned my daily route but i'll figure it out eventually.

OH WAIT THERE IS ONE OTHER PICTURE I TOOK YESTERDAY

mocha evolved into hippowdon! i'm so glad i stuck it out getting a female hippopotas, the black coloration is just so much cooler LMAO i held off her evolution a few levels to get earthquake a few levels early :] cause my team is somehow a bit underleveled?? ever so slightly. i could use some more Power.

and THAT'S THE UPDATE phew. i'm thinking instead of progressing to iron island i might do some contests and stuff, i'm just in the mood for it. i already grinded a handful of accessories this morning in amity square which should hopefully carry me with what i want to do lmao

#kiki was here #kiki.txt #kiki plays games #pt playthrough #long post

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lollitree · 1 year

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Your tags under the pokemon poll are SO TRUEE and it hurts how many people dont understand that

I grew up in the change from pixel art to 3D and have nostalgia for bw, xy AND sm. So i think because of that, I can see the good and bad in all the games but don't feel like any of them 'peaked''. They're all different games, so they are really hard to compare.

On a related note tho, its so sad to see so many fans praise one of my childhood games and not the others. And like, I get it because gen 5 is more similar to what they grew up with.....but every time I say I love xy, sm and even swsh i get told they are terrible and usually imply that I shouldnt like them :/

That only happens online, though......irl all the fans ive met, no matter their ages, just say something like 'i didnt like it, but i'm glad you did!'. Growing up in irl fan spaces and having to move online during corona was AN EXPERIENCE omg

Yeah! It's super interesting how much we are affected by nostaglia.

There's usually a pattern you can notice with this stuff too. There are two lines that go up as time goes on. The one everyone talks about as being great and the newer one people hate on, usually to do with nostalgia of the now older original audience of the game.

My full reply got long so putting it under a read more skfjsh

My first Pokemon game was Colosseum, so gen 2/3 pokemon and gen 3 sound effects are pretty nostalgic to me.

Then I grew up mostly playing Diamond/Platinum/PMD2/Ranger2. I LOVED Team Galactic. I restarted the games so many times just so I could play through the story again with Cyrus and the Galactic Grunt theme. (I have also played through pmd2 many many times). I remember in my early teens seeing people on the internet hating on DPPt a lot and it making me sad. I recall someone saying that the gen 4 Pokemon sucked and I remember thinking "aw I guess they're right, some of these pokemon are really boring or annoying" and then I learned later that the pokemon I was thinking of were all gen 1 pokemon sdfkjsh

Gen 5 was hated when it first came out because it wasn't very fun for new players. I bet it also didn't help that the advertising for B2W2 was pretty poor and also came out after the 3DS did. I didn't even know it was a sequel until years later. That's why they went in the complete opposite direction for gen 6, and added gimmicks!

I have heard multiple people call the designs from gen 5 horrible over the years (And they're all wrong). Those comments are nowhere NEAR as frequent now, but they almost always come from people with nostalgia for the ones they grew up with.

I was 13 when BW first came out. I think I've only beaten it once, MAYBE twice. I'm not entirely sure why, because I was still replaying DPPt a lot. I would guess it's because the game is super linear in terms of gameplay and every playthrough will start exactly the same. You don't really get to make decisions on your team and how you play until later. Kid me loved the beginning of the main pokemon games the most because they were the most fun bits to play usually. So I suppose when you've already played it once, the beginning becomes quite boring.

And to compare. I did not like XY when it first came out. I was 16 and very against change and also my fav types at the time were dark and dragon so fairy type was the worst thing ever. I said previously that I really liked Team Galactic, so Team Flare was just a bootleg version of them to me. BUT I did immediately replay the game when I finished it. The character customisation plus the huge dex gives the game a lot of replayability. Because while I didn't like a lot about the game it was still fun to play, and it was the first time online was really accessible to me. I went back to 2013/2014 on my blog and there's SO much positivity about the game it's amazing! Over time people only remembered the bad parts and started hating it. I bet there'll be an influx of nostalgia for it before long. We can even see it in the hope people have for SV having Kalos DLC.

I need to replay sun/moon or play USUM because in my brain currently it sucks. But I'm very aware that that's because I only played it once, it's been years, and I played it when I started to grow out of Pokemon. So I'm excited to play it again now that I can appreciate it better. (Also the Sun/Moon anime is my fav so I have a lot of love for the characters now)

And finally, I loved SWSH! I didn't finish it the first time I tried to play it. Mostly because I spent HOURS trying to get a shiny hatenna before doing the fire gym skdfjhs. But then I SPED through the game with a bug type only run before Legends came out and I really enjoyed the story! One of those things that's more enjoyable if you're only focused on enjoying the story (and playing the game through with a joltik as the lead and trying to make sure they stay strong enough to beat the game with pfft) Also Leon was the first ever Champion I actually thought was cool and enjoyed seeing while playing the game (as ridiculous as his outfit is)

If I were to logically plot out the best for me based on how nostalgia works and taking into consideration that public opinion ABSOLUTELY influences me. I would have said BW was the best and XY(or SM) was the downfall, even though I had way more fun playing XY than BW as a kid

#pokemon #boy that got long #I really wanted to be transparent in sharing my own nostalgia #ACTUALLY I HAVE BEAT BW TWICE #I forgot I played it in pokeMMO with my friend like 5 years ago #it's WAY more fun in that because you get follower pokemon and I got to play with my friend #also they let you reset EVs after you beat the game so it's more balanced in that regard #man I need to play USUM soon #I want to play with a cutiefly now that I'm not a grumpy old man and don't hate fairy type #also I didn't mention it in the post because it wasn't relevant to my point but I love XY now through exposure I love it all dksbfk #Ive done so kuch research and Im so gutted at the wasted potential it really needed a 3rd version #also with the pokemas villain arc I can now officially say I like lysandre #love a villain who doesn't lie it's such an interesting trait for someone keeping quiet about wanting to murder millions of people

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creoterative · 2 months

Text

Hey.

Remember my crossover between Pokemon and the Half Life universe?

I haven't updated on that story for a long time now, more than a full year. And it's been due to a lack of time, but also a lack of logical ideas. Why? Because I started with Half Life 2.

And I don't really remember why I did that. I think it was because of a Rap by Dan Bull, that I absolutely adore with all my heart. BUT that made it a lot harder for me to write the story, since I didn't have part one fully planned and written out.

What does that mean for The Lambda Core now?

It basically means, that I'm gonna write a whole new Fanfiction, a new Crossover between two of my most favorite games. Number one being Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, Number two now being Half Life, to be more specific, it's fanmade remake Black Mesa.

The protagonist is still gonna be Paul, but I'm gonna make some big changes for him and the whole story. So that basically means, The Lambda Core isn't cannon anymore (in my universe here xD).

I'll leave it on AO3 of course, it seemed like a few people enjoyed it, even though it's one of the craziest and nonesensical crossovers ever. Thanks for that by the way, it really keeps me pushing, that there are people out there, who enjoy my insane ideas! xD

Well.

I'm gonna start writing now. Or at least drawing some sketches for the story and making out a few basics for it to start.

Thanks for the patience with me and my weird writing times!

And I'm so looking forward to writing another Paul Story (That I'm hopefully gonna finish one day, heh).

Also, of course, I'm gonna finish my TWDG fanfiction, Let's Play a Game then, that one is definitely going as planned and I want to finish it this year at least xD

Again, thank you for the patience, I appreciate it!

By the way, if you have any ideas, suggestions, critics for my stories, feel free to leave them here or on my AO3, I'm always open for constructive criticism and plot ideas ;)

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By the way.

I know, that Half Life is a very old gaming fandom. The first Half Life Game debuted in 1998. So, to give those of you, who are not familiar with the story, a little teaser of what's maybe going to happen (or not, I'll decide that as I go xD), I'll leave the trailer for Black Mesa here.

It's good. But 18+, so don't watch it if you've got weak nerves or are underage.

youtube

#pokemon paul #pokemon diamond and pearl #half life #half life 2 #pokemon fanfiction #half life fanfiction #crossover #black mesa #Youtube

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cookieblobber · 2 months

Text

what the fuck | Y Pokémon Legends Z-A is an Xtremely Important Game

how

HOWWWWWW

EVERYONE THOUGHT THIS WASN'T EVER GONNA HAPPEN...THE FRANCHISE MOVED ON SO QUICKLY FROM GEN 6, XZ AND YZ WAS ALLEGEDLY CANNED WHEN 3 YEARS PASSED, ZYGARDE WAS SO HAPHAZARDLY FORCED INTO SUN AND MOON

WHAT DO YOU MEAN POKEMON Z IS A REAL TITLE????? IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE JUST A LEGEND (haha see what i did there), A PLAYGROUND RUMOR, LIKE POKEMON WATERBLUE, POKEMON GRAY, POKEMON DELTA EMERALD....ARE WE NOW GETTING SUPER MARIO 64 2 WITH A PLAYABLE LUIGI???? IS SONIC AVAILABLE IN SMASH MELEE NOW??????? IS MEW ABLE TO BE FOUND UNDER THE TRUCK???????

ALL THE RECENT RUMORS DEBATED ON GEN 2 OR GEN 5 REMAKES HAPPENING, SV DLC HINTED AT GEN 5, THE PRESENTATION THAT HAPPENED TODAY HINTED AT GEN 2, HOW WAS THIS NOT LEAKED PRIOR?!?!???!!?!?!?!!?!? AND IT'S A LEGENDS ENTRY!?!?!??!!?!?!?!??!?!?!?

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The fabled Pokémon Z

Backstory: After BW2 was made, Game Freak had to start working on X and Y. X and Y was the first mainline Pokémon games to fully be in 3D, but it also came with the cost of a potential "definitive version" not being possible. Now, I'm not too familiar with what Pokemon would do after Gen 4 (not cuz I wasn't interested, I just never had the money to keep up with this franchise fully), but from my knowledge over the years (and watching a bit of DYKG), there were plans for a "definitive version" being like Black and White's, where it's not just only an expansion of the two games, but it changes the story and characters so much that it's practically a sequel to the story that was already made.

They wanted to do similar with X and Y for this fabled "Z Version" possibly titled Pokemon XZ and YZ. Of course though, it never happened. What remains are the fact the anime calls itself “Pokémon XYZ” and having episodes involving Zygarde, the fact Zygarde and it’s whole ordeal got shifted into Sun and Moon, and two random new X and Y games hidden in the source code of X and Y. They would eventually get to do it again with Sun and Moon ala Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, the DLCs for SWSH and SV would serve more as epilogues of the stories that came along (less full experiences worthy of being sequels and more so add-ons to the initial games), and that’s about it. X and Y…left in the dust, no expansion or anything….until now.

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Pokémon Legends - Awkward Position

Pokémon Legends was introduced with Pokémon Legends Arceus, and it looked to be the massive change up the franchise was desperately needing after how lackluster SWSH felt, showing that Game Freak does want to actually do greater things and take advantage of this new hardware (contrary to a lot of popular belief). Many agreed it was a little rough in some areas but, that barely mattered when the game just felt so refreshing and fun to play. A lot of worries still were afoot with this franchise, mainly if it will truly pave the wave for a new way to enjoy Pokémon.

Legends Arceus released on January, a month after the Diamond and Pearl remakes, which those games were clearly saved for holiday releases (and we all know holiday releases mean easy money from parents wanting to get gifts), so theoretically a lot of people into Pokémon or wanting to get a new Pokémon game for their child probably would’ve spent some money already on BDSP in time for Christmas. The game would also then…basically be forgotten as it would receive its last update next month and on top of that, the new generation of Pokémon was revealed for this holiday year (not to mention since both games were huge projects developed by Game Freak and BDSP was from ILCA, it only put the quality of SV into question).

You can guess after the release of SV, it made many skeptical about what’s next for the franchise. While SV offered some great ideas, Legends Arceus felt like it was truly a brand new foundation to look into for the franchise going forward, and it seemed like it did really well for what it was. As of right now it’s reached 14M sales, to put that into perspective: SWSH made 25M, theoretically both versions making around 12.5 each, so Legends Arceus may have made just as much, if not more, sales than a version exclusive title, which really shows how hyped people were to see what this game had to offer. So suddenly having the franchise move on from it, almost as if they weren’t confident in the game to begin with, it seemed a bit worrying.

Until now

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Pokémon Legends FUCKING Z-A

this is a real title. It is insane they pulled a Metroid and just revived a well known canceled name to make something completely new out of. I think what’s most wild is how not a single rumor or alleged insider ever hinted at this being a possibility, it was either claims of Gen 2 remakes ala Let’s Go style, or Gen 5 remakes because obligatory remakes of games from half of whatever generations we have now ago. I mean Gen 9 hinted at constant relations with Unova, especially in the game’s DLC iirc. And as we all saw, they kept teasing constant Gen 2 Pokémon and events in the Pokémon Presents, all to just throw a massive curve ball and introduce Gen 6. All those jokes about Paldea being based of Spain, being near France (which Kalos is based on) implying Gen 6 remakes were coming were just suddenly true I guess??? It’s almost as if within the team behind all this they made up the idea of Gen 2/5 remakes just to mess with potential leakers.

Now, confession: …I have yet to still play Legends Arceus. Again, not because I don’t want to, I just don’t have the money, so take some knowledge on gameplay and the like with a grain of salt if brought up 🥲. However, I am certain there’s still plenty of other stuff to bring up in other ways, starting with: What kinda game is this?

Many assumed if Legends was ever going to be a series, it was supposed to involve exploring past of a region. Many people making their “Legends Celebi” or “Legends Kyreum” mock-ups would believe it would give us an interesting look in what Johto/Unova respectively used to look like back then. Makes sense since speaking of legends as a word usually involves the past, what was widely believed long ago and the like. However, nothing about the trailer of Z seemed to imply this is supposed to be the ye olden days of Kalos, it all looks more like our times.

I think Tahko put it the best

They’re essentially remixing these games old themes in a fascinating new way. Usually when we see the inevitable Pokémon remakes every 2 generations, they’re obviously made with the intention to port an old almost barely accessible game to modern consoles (When Gen 3 came out, you couldn’t trade Gen 1/2 Pokémon. When Gen 4 came out, you couldn’t play GameBoy games in DS so you couldn’t migrate Pokémon with the GBA slot. When Gen 6 came out, GBA Pokémon games were not playable on 3DS). They have their own merits and reason to exist, they’re usually sorta reimaginings of these older experiences with a modern take on them with new features and such, and honestly that’s all they need to be: familiar, yet still new enough to be worth experiencing all over again.

These Legends games on the other hand seem to be attempts at revisiting these old regions and themes but put them in a completely new perspective/world and having a bigger focus on a possible legendary Pokémon that didn’t get enough time to shine. The reason why Pokémon Legends Arceus was all about time travel and the past wasn’t because “Legends means past,” rather Gen 4 had themes of time and space, so ofc it makes sense for this game based on Gen 4’s region to have a plot line involving well, time and space. Similar to how Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers, the PMD games that came out in Gen 4, were about time traveling and saving the future and the fabric of space and shit, Legends Arceus follows suite and is supposed to be viewed as if it’s an entry to the Gen 4 titles. Honestly, this is a really great thing, as while it’s nice to explore the lore or history of these different locations, it could get a little boring and possibility limiting if every Legends games was solely about Pokémon history and the like. It’s a concept worth revisiting sometimes, but not as the defining identity of the Legends series.

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The themes of Gen 6 seem to have a focus on Life and Death. It’s not easy right now to determine how exactly these concepts will be involved for Z, but seeing how this game will take place entirely within a massive more in-depth version of Lumiose City, the best I can assume is how there will be more focus in the lives of Pokémon in a more domesticated setting ala Ryme City from the Detective Pikachu series; the polar opposite to being out in the wild and seeing how feral and savage Pokémon can act towards humans back in Legends Arceus. The death side…is unknown, maybe I need to play the X and Y games to get a better idea 💀

Ah yes, I forgot, it was announced the main setting will be Lumiose City

And as shown in the trailer…it is definitely way larger than what X and Y initially had.

I’ve seen some people feel a little worried that this game will take place solely in this one city, as Pokémon is well known for having to travel setting to setting, and being stuck in one city could maybe make things feel boring with little variety in environment. But, if games like GTA and Yakuza can be city games so well beloved by many, I don’t think it’d be hard to pull off making a really compelling environment with just one city for Pokémon, it just needs to have interesting and varied landmarks, which shouldn’t be any different from practically any other Pokémon game ever, it’s just making a whole new region but surrounded constantly under this one city.

Again look at Detective Pikachu, specifically the movie, it’s whole setting was based on this one city, a lot of the plot was able to take off by exploring this city, and the climax and final battle took place in the city. I feel like they can really pull it off if they play their cards right and just make Lumiose this wonderful bustling town, and plus I’m sure there will be some parts of the region that will still offer open wild areas to find Pokémon and the like. Hell, the Pokémon themselves might carry everything if they make some really adorable or fun interactions, seeing them just living a calm lives with their trainers/human partners.

Again, a lot of this is still hard to discuss since we’re going off of simple city and title reveals, so we’ll have to further wait and see what else is planned here.

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There’s been claims too that they’re completely skipping over Gen 5 in the remake department, since again it seemed like it made the most sense to make Gen 5 remakes now due to SV hinting connections with it, but…….nah bro 💀. Everyone was out here sighing relief that they’re not gonna have ILCA butcher the Gen 5 games when, they’re probably just being saved for Gen 10 since again, this happens every 2 generations (minus the Gen 1 remakes).

To be honest though, even if ILCA is brought back for it or they once again don’t really attempt to make these Gen 5 remakes take advantage of new console hardware, like they don’t turn Unova into an entirely different region with open world setting and want to stay as close as possible to the original game’s layout and all…personally I wouldn’t mind it. Ever since the jump to home console, expectations and products of the mainline games have evolved significantly, they’re WAYYYY different from what Pokémon games actually looked like. At least back on the 3DS, games were still relatively linear, so being able to remake RSE in the way it is with the XY engine didn’t seem to out of place, it didn’t risk a whole lot. We now have more focus on open zone/world and shit, while something like Diamond and Pearl was more tile/grid based and really limiting; imo trying to remake DPPT in this sorta open zone type deal that the SWSH engine offered would’ve possibly compromised part of DPPT’s identity, some might argue that DPPT being compact and linear is what makes it enjoyable. Now, this isn’t to say BDSP was a massively faithful remake, it’s considered to be worse than the original games in many ways and a lot of it felt like they went way too far in trying to be “faithful” to the source material, they could’ve easily just made the game akin to Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee. But again, some fans would’ve still been disappointed that it doesn’t seem like Gen 4 is getting some proper treatment in using the hardware and play style that the recent title now had to offer.

This is where the Legends series comes in, where one series of games can continue being considered faithful to what they’re based on, while the other can just do whatever the fuck they want with old material while also using what current hardware is capable of. BDSP and Legends Arceus were a great showcase of this sorta decision making, do you want the game that you easily recognize the moment you boot up (something more simple in power)? Or do you want the game that uses stuff you remember in whole new ways that it’s practically a completely new game (something that takes advantage of what kinds of games are possible now)? The same sorta deal might happen with the Gen 5 remakes.

Plus, I don’t think Black and White’s whole look can even be ruined, like I really think it’s impossible. BW aged pretty well due to its usage of 3D environments and camera angles and the like, so if this next faithful remake were just basically port the game and upscale the graphics and all, it would still look really great, if not better upon getting to see these 3D environments in HD. With the game already look great visually form the get-go, people won’t really have much problem with how the game looks as a lot of the 3D world environment would already be done for them. Does that make sense?

As for Gen 2 remakes ala Let’s Go Pichu and Togepi or whatever……………nah……nah that shit ain’t happening 💀

Let’s Go was made as a way for new fans from Pokémon GO (which came out a year prior and was widely successful) to be able to get into the rest of the franchise, with the Switch finally being out, it was a brand new beginning for a lot of fans. And ofc, it used Kanto cuz that’s what most people remember Pokémon for. I’m not sure what the point of Gen 2 remakes of the same style would be for, and as far as I know there isn’t much reason for Gen 2 to be relevant at the moment outside of certain Johto Pokémon making a somewhat noticeable appearance in the recent SV games. Sure, it could be argued it’s just like what I said earlier, it’s done to make these games that are not at all playable on a current console more available, but the usual remakes just seem like tradition at this point, Let’s Go remakes is still unknown if they’re necessary. Especially since yk…we have that one new feature of the Switch that allows us to play old retro games, and they’ve been allowing GB/GBC/GBA games to be playable as well……I’m just saying they could easily just work on there instead…

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With all that being said, why Gen 6? Besides I guess Kalos being next to Paldea according to their real world counterparts, there hasn’t been much brought up about Gen 6 lately. Just like Gen 2, it hasn’t had much relevance, and it’s not the next generation that needs a remake compared to Gen 5.

How I see it, I think it’s less about monetary business reasons/series synergy or tradition or whatever, and more of a symbolic reason.

Gen 6 felt like a missed opportunity according to many people. Now, sure you could say that for a lot of recent Pokémon games, but like I said earlier, at least they had their opportunities to expand their stories and lore and such. Gen 6…did not get that special treatment. It was the first 3D Pokémon game and it set some stuff up for possible expansion in the usual third version or sequel games, only for time constraints to get in the way. Hell, some people consider Gen 6 to be where Pokémon started to have its downfall, the whole “[franchise] had a rough transition into 3D”, due to the game lacking features and the like that Gen 5 had in spades, or being the start of showing how flawed the franchise is and how it’s starting to fumble trying to manage itself. Having to make brand new games with a whole new region, new set of designs, new gimmicks, everything that will be the identity of the franchise for the next 3 years, until they start over again? This plan was not started to seem viable anymore, especially when Gen 8 rolled around. And as of lately you see people stupidly suggesting Pokémon needs to return to 2D and only stay as a 2D franchise, cuz that’s totally a great mindset for a franchise.

To me, this is Game Freak feeling confident that they can manage this, they have more experience in how they want to create these titles with this new home console hardware and massive expectations. Gen 6 was the game that started a new era for Pokémon, it only makes sense to use that era defining title to prove this new formula of Pokémon is indeed a new series to dive into now, one that shows off what they’re capable of now that they’re not held back by being on portable consoles for another 20 years. This is them giving a game that deserved more attention a new look and the expansion it deserved, possibly a way bigger one than any other generations that came after.

Seeing how this game is being saved for 2025 (presumably for the Switch 2 or whatever), if this truly is being worked on for another year and a half, being saved for the next holiday season maybe, then I think this means the franchise is finally starting to slow down and take it’s time. However, only time will tell what’s in store for the franchise.

#pokemon #pokémon legends z a #Pokémon legends #game freak #Nintendo #Pokémon presents #Pokémon

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