(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[mertyville]

I noticed this watching a meme video

Why do we get each game get a bigger variation of a Pokemon as a "gimmick"?
Totem Pokemon
Alpha Pokemon
Dynamax Pokemon
Titan Pokemon
Meanwhile Wailord is still small in-battle...

 

[R_N]

It's an easy way to make something different and/or imposing

 

[pika pal]

I noticed this watching a meme video

Why do we get each game get a bigger variation of a Pokemon as a "gimmick"?
Totem Pokemon
Alpha Pokemon
Dynamax Pokemon
Titan Pokemon
Meanwhile Wailord is still small in-battle...

It's an easy way to make something different and/or imposing

I notice this correlates with the majority of these implementations being for Pokemon in Boss/Intimidation roles (Dynamax and to some degree Alphas half there since it's a Player Mechanic, but the scripted ones and stuff like Eternamax clearly have that purpose)

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Surely if there's one thing upon which we can all agree it's that Game Freak were total cowards for not giving us Gigantamax Wailord

 

[Pikachu315111]

So Marnie dropping Morpeko as her ace for Grimmsnarl is really dumb, but what makes it even dumber is that it was so easily avoided. They didn't need to make a Gmax Morpeko just for her. They didn't even need to make her one of the only characters to vanilla Dynamax her ace (though that would have also worked). Just have her follow after her brother and not Dynamax anything.

Hm, I don't know, I think it works alright.

Consider that, before her Champion Cup battle with you, she never even used a member of the Impidimp family. It was a complete surprise... but that may be because we never battled her outside of a "friendly match". First time you battle her it's on the second visit to Motostoke and its just presented as a warm-up battle before facing Kabu. Second time you battle her it's to gain entrance into Spikemuth and it's more presented as a test; she does want you to not only gain entrance but also clear up this whole mess she likely feels partially to blame for by defeating her brother.

Because unlike Piers, Marnie does take battling seriously. It's her goal after all, she believes by becoming Champion she can shine a spotlight on Spikemuth's economic problems (which are implied to be partially Rose's doing due to Spikemuth not being in a Power Spot yet Piers refuses to move the Dark Gym). And so, in her belief, that also means she has to "play" by Rose's rules. If the only way to succeed in the Galar League is to use a Dynamax/Gigantamax Pokemon, she'll use one. It's not a matter of preference, it's a matter of what's most efficient to get to her goal. Therefore, in professional battles, that's when she uses her (Gigantamaxing) Grimmsnarl. Her not using it outside of the professional battles can either hint she doesn't see it as a preferred member of her team and Morpeko is her "true" ace, OR that she just takes battling so seriously she doesn't want to risk her "professional" ace to get hurt in a casual battle that it may not be able to battle when she needs it.

Eitherway, in a subtle way, it can point out the "error" in Marnie's thinking. Sticking to Pokemon's message that Pokemon are your friends and partner, by using Grimmsnarl as she is Marnie is treating it more as a tool. It doesn't matter if she's close to Grimmsnarl, at that moment in the story she's just doing what she believes needs to be done. And thus, when she goes up against the player who has bonded with all their Pokemon, her Grimmsnarl is defeated as well as her goal. But the thing is, her "goal" wasn't actually her "dream", and with it over she got a chance to re-evaluate what she truly wanted. And so when we next have a battle with her, a casual one in Spikemuth, she's now using Grimmsnarl as a true member of her party (also, if you battle her before doing the Galar Star Tournament, Morpeko and Grimmsnarl are both the same level).

Tell me what Galarian Ponyta typing again without looking up.

Cotton Candy-Type.

His team structure is just so annoying. And it wouldn't take that much to change things, just don't make him quite such a mono-type trainer. Toss an Eevee on there early on and have Bede complain about how long it's taking to evolve into an Espeon*, have 1 Psychic/Fairy mon on his team the entire game, maybe include 1 not-actually-psychic mon(not necessary to make this work but it's helpful) and shift the rest of his team when he switches types. There's no reason his final team should have 3 Psychic/Fairy types.

So initial fight: Psychic, Eevee, Psychic/Fairy
Final fight before swap: Psychic, (ghost or whatever), Eevee, Psychic/Fairy
Tournament fight: Mawile, (ghost or whatever), Fairy, Sylveon, Psychic/Fairy

Suddenly there's continuity across the fights since he only swaps 1 mon, he's still clearly a type specialist, but there's no type overlap beyond the minimum. What we got was just sad.

*Because he's a jerk

While I agree three Psychic/Fairy-Types feels like they're cheating, at the same time I kind of like that after switching Type Specialty he's forced to suddenly replace half his team. It's something I can totally see Opal enforcing, and heck, maybe Bede choosing to pick up a Gardevoir was in his own way rebelling against the complete overhaul of his team "you may be able to force me to only use Fairy-types, but you can't stop me from using as many Fairy/Psychic-types as I can find; you're lucky Mr. Mime in Galar are Ice/Psychic!".

Infact, I'm wondering if that was maybe what they were going for, because outside of that, there's no reason for Bede to be a Type Specialist. Or why he wouldn't be a Steel-type Specialist as he respects Rose so much. Just because Marnie is a Type Specialist (and good reason to be) doesn't mean Bede also had to be; he could still have the Hatenna family as his Ace. Like if I made his team:

First Battle: Klink, Bronzor, Hatenna
Second Battle: Klink, Bronzor, Honedge, Hatenna
Third Battle: Klang, Bronzong, Doublade, Hattrem
Fourth Battle: Mawile, Galarian Rapidash, Mimikyu, Hatterene

Start him out with an even split of Steel & Psychic, Slightly tip the scale in Steel's favor, make his Steel-types look like they're coming along just before he's "betrayed" by Rose, and then FAIRY SWITCH UP!

 

[AztecCroc]

Grimmsnarl being Marnie's true ace was foreshadowed in two ways. One is that she's meant to contrast with Bede, who has Hatterene as his ace, which is Grimmsnarl's counterpart, and two is that her hairstyle is based off of Grimmsnarl's ears and bangs.
View attachment 497863View attachment 497864

Also, this close up has made me realize that her necklace is based on its face.

 

[DreamPrince]

The Hisui relatives not being in the base Dex is dumb. It’s going back to HGSS and FRLG of not letting you obtain Glaceon, Leafeon, Magnezone for the former while Espeon and Umbreon for the latter because they didn’t implement the evolution methods despite the Pokemon existing. It seems they are forcing you get PLA and Home to get these mons, which make the worse than HGSS and FRLG .

 

[Imperial Magala]

To be fair, Pokemon that haven't been seen in about 200 years is a stronger argument for not showing up in later games than evolutions discovered in other regions. Having said that, I feel like there can be an in-universe explanation for Hisuisan Pokemon being available to catch/evolve, between discovering a lost population, wormhole/time travel mischief, or finding research notes that tell you Peat Blocks and Black Augurite are evolution items.

 

[Pikachu315111]

To be fair, Pokemon that haven't been seen in about 200 years is a stronger argument for not showing up in later games than evolutions discovered in other regions. Having said that, I feel like there can be an in-universe explanation for Hisuisan Pokemon being available to catch/evolve, between discovering a lost population, wormhole/time travel mischief, or finding research notes that tell you Peat Blocks and Black Augurite are evolution items.

They could have appeared in Area Zero (maybe along with some other Regional Variants), another way to make that place weirder aside from the Paradox Pokemon.

 

[R_N]

going to be very funny if hisuian pokemon are just wandering around kitikami and the explanation is just "wow, did ou know these were around in old sinnoh too? weird!"

 

[Worldie]

going to be very funny if hisuian pokemon are just wandering around kitikami and the explanation is just "wow, did ou know these were around in old sinnoh too? weird!"

To be fair, considering there are some kind of timetravel shenenigans going on anyway in SV, would it really not make sense?

Even assuming that the theory that paradoxes are just "imaginary things given life", that'd still work out for Hisuian mons.

And also, I mean, we've been doing fossil revival for a few generations and even whatever the fuck we've done with the Galar fossil atrocities, so reviving extinct Hisuian pokemon isn't exactly anything out of the ordinary

 

[R_N]

To be fair, considering there are some kind of timetravel shenenigans going on anyway in SV, would it really not make sense?

Even assuming that the theory that paradoxes are just "imaginary things given life", that'd still work out for Hisuian mons.

And also, I mean, we've been doing fossil revival for a few generations and even whatever the fuck we've done with the Galar fossil atrocities, so reviving extinct Hisuian pokemon isn't exactly anything out of the ordinary

I mean my supposition would be "they are not even remotely related to anything going on in area zero"
Should have just gone like 20 miles off the coast to kitakimi, Jacq, wyrdeer all over the place.

 

[pika pal]

I'm more than a bit annoyed by the repeated introduction of Pokemon with pure-aesthetic differences that are a pain to gather and have neither a tangible benefit nor a particularly distinct difference. Some examples that have been annoying me include

• Vivillion patterns
• Florges colors
• Alcremie's like 17 flavors
• Toxitricity having different patterns based on nature
• Sinistea/Polteageist literally only being identifiable by a dot you can barely see on the field model
• 4 different Sqwakabilly (when you only need like 2 for the HA's like Basculin at most)

This feels like collector bloat.

 

[Ironmage]

I'm more than a bit annoyed by the repeated introduction of Pokemon with pure-aesthetic differences that are a pain to gather and have neither a tangible benefit nor a particularly distinct difference. Some examples that have been annoying me include

• Vivillion patterns
• Florges colors
• Alcremie's like 17 flavors
• Toxitricity having different patterns based on nature
• Sinistea/Polteageist literally only being identifiable by a dot you can barely see on the field model
• 4 different Sqwakabilly

This feels like collector bloat.

Having not played SwSh, I was sure that Toxtricity at least changed the Type of Overdrive between its two STABS until relatively recently.

 

[Hugin]

Having not played SwSh, I was sure that Toxtricity at least changed the Type of Overdrive between its two STABS until relatively recently.

It changes a couple of moves(but not many) and a non-relevant ability option. So basically useless, but not quite. And since the form isn't determined by nature mints, but it's intro gen had nature mints, in competitive everyone ran the form with slightly better move options even if they didn't use them and used a mint to get the right ability. In-game, it was such a minor change that most players wouldn't even notice unless they were specifically tracking which moves they got.

 

[Imperial Magala]

Out of all the gyms of Kanto to import to Alola, they picked the one with the Gym Leader whose original defining trait was not being from Kanto.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

A lot has been said about starter Pokemon having more prescribed personalities in recent generations. Personally, I'm mostly fine with it, but what I don't like is how often they make the starter families feel disjointed. Older designs weren't immune to this (shout out to Blastoise for literally being an entirely unrelated turtle Pokemon stapled onto Squirtle and Wartortle) and there are recent designs that I think work quite nicely (the progression from Scorbunny to Raboot to Cinderace is very smooth) but when things get weird in recent generations, it is extremely jarring.

Litten and Torracat are basically just regular cats with fire powers, while Incineroar is suddenly a wrestler. Sobble and Quaxly are themed around crying and hair gel, and then when they evolve they transition to being a secret agent and a dancer and the theme they had in their first stage is immediately abandoned. Sprigatito goes from a soothing but needy lapcat to a stylish rogue with a yoyo to a horny magician, the links between which are tenuous at best.

And then Fuecoco abruptly sprouts an egg on its head that then hatches into its own sentient being, which is maybe the weirdest turn any Pokemon has ever taken in its evolution. That's not even a problem with any of Fuecoco family having a particularly prescribed personality. That's just an absolutely bonkers idea in its own right. Seriously, what the fuck?

 

[AztecCroc]

I'm more than a bit annoyed by the repeated introduction of Pokemon with pure-aesthetic differences that are a pain to gather and have neither a tangible benefit nor a particularly distinct difference. Some examples that have been annoying me include

• Vivillion patterns
• Florges colors
• Alcremie's like 17 flavors
• Toxitricity having different patterns based on nature
• Sinistea/Polteageist literally only being identifiable by a dot you can barely see on the field model
• 4 different Sqwakabilly

This feels like collector bloat.

Toxtricity and Squawkabilly aren't just aesthetic though, just minor differences.

 

[pika pal]

Toxtricity and Squawkabilly aren't just aesthetic though, just minor differences.

Toxiticity I admit I did disregard the minor functional differences between the forms, but realistically is that difference ever going to impact you? The move is too late to affect in-game, and in comp you're gonna Mint it to the right nature anyway while always prioritizing one form.

Sqwakabilly I specifically cited it having 4 forms because they only differ on 2 different Hidden Abilities, so you could have cut it to 2 colors (compare Tatsugiri where each of the 3 interact differently with Dondozo at least)

 

[Pikachu315111]

View attachment 499155
Out of all the gyms of Kanto to import to Alola, they picked the one with the Gym Leader whose original defining trait was not being from Kanto.

Well the Gym is supposed to be a joke so they picked the one that was easiest to have the leader misconstrue (cause Surge's Gym is definitely the oddball when you think about it).

And then Fuecoco abruptly sprouts an egg on its head that then hatches into its own sentient being, which is maybe the weirdest turn any Pokemon has ever taken in its evolution. That's not even a problem with any of Fuecoco family having a particularly prescribed personality. That's just an absolutely bonkers idea in its own right. Seriously, what the fuck?

It kind of feels they worked a bit backwards here. They knew they wanted to have Skeledirge, a Dia de Muertos Nile crocodile with a cleaner bird fireball. So, how do they get to it from Feucoco?
Well, first they need to figure out where the cleaner bird fireball came from. Birds hatch from eggs, bird eggs are (usually) hatched in nests, and combined together a big egg in a nest looks like a sombrero. So when Fuecoco evolves it'll be wearing a nest sombrero, the egg just a fire spirit which connected with it.
So, Crocalor now has a sombrero, now what? And why does Skeledirge even need a fiery cleaner bird? It uses the bird to attack. How? By launching at its opponent. How? I guess it roars... NO! IT SINGS! Sings? Yes! Skeledirge sings a dirge that launches the fire bird, like a mariachi. And you know what mariachi wear? Sombreros!
Fuecoco evolves into a mariachi who wears a sombrero that's a nest with a fire egg in it, and when it evolves the egg hatches into a fireball cleaner bird it uses to attack with by singing.

 

[R_N]

View attachment 499155
Out of all the gyms of Kanto to import to Alola, they picked the one with the Gym Leader whose original defining trait was not being from Kanto.

To be fair it feels fitting for the cheesy tourist trap gym to grab the "american" gym

 

[DrPumpkinz]

It kind of feels they worked a bit backwards here. They knew they wanted to have Skeledirge, a Dia de Muertos Nile crocodile with a cleaner bird fireball. So, how do they get to it from Feucoco?
Well, first they need to figure out where the cleaner bird fireball came from. Birds hatch from eggs, bird eggs are (usually) hatched in nests, and combined together a big egg in a nest looks like a sombrero. So when Fuecoco evolves it'll be wearing a nest sombrero, the egg just a fire spirit which connected with it.
So, Crocalor now has a sombrero, now what? And why does Skeledirge even need a fiery cleaner bird? It uses the bird to attack. How? By launching at its opponent. How? I guess it roars... NO! IT SINGS! Sings? Yes! Skeledirge sings a dirge that launches the fire bird, like a mariachi. And you know what mariachi wear? Sombreros!
Fuecoco evolves into a mariachi who wears a sombrero that's a nest with a fire egg in it, and when it evolves the egg hatches into a fireball cleaner bird it uses to attack with by singing.

That's fine and all, but there is nothing about Fuecoco itself that would indicate it's about birth a fire bird out the top of its head and also sing.

 

[Coronis]

To be fair it feels fitting for the cheesy tourist trap gym to grab the "american" gym

Makes sense considering its an American region

 

[Nokocchi]

• Alcremie's like 17 flavors
• Toxitricity having different patterns based on nature
• 4 different Sqwakabilly

-Alcremie has 9 cream colors and 7 sweet decorations for a total of 63 forms. 17 is way off
-There is some minor movepool differences between the Toxtricity forms, most notable is Amped form being the only one that can get Shift Gear
-Similarly, Green and Blue Squakabilly forms have Guts as their Hidden Ability while Yellow and White have Sheer Force(unfortunately for the latter the only physical move that can be used with it is the 50 power Bug move Pounce)

 

[pika pal]

-Alcremie has 9 cream colors and 7 sweet decorations for a total of 63 forms. 17 is way off

This is just reinforcing my point

-Similarly, Green and Blue Squakabilly forms have Guts as their Hidden Ability while Yellow and White have Sheer Force(unfortunately for the latter the only physical move that can be used with it is the 50 power Bug move Pounce)

Already responded to this point in another reply.