(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[Pikachu315111]

AFAIK they didn't do anything for LGPE or L:A at all; I believe the creator has spoken about having less time to devote to it (iirc he might have been quite ill at one point? Though I might be misremembering that).' I've not kept up with the SwSh chapter beyond glancing at the updates on Serebii Forums every so often but from what I've seen it was quite barebones. Basically just retold the game plot with some small additions.

Sounds like Pokemon Company should take a note from the anime and, instead of having one manga-ka work on all of them, hire a different one whenever a new gen/game comes out.

And yes, I realize what I said is probably blasphemy because the magna has a heavy amount of lore & continuity, but if Hidenori Kusaka is having a hard time keeping up due to the the insistence of releasing a new game/content each year, plus his health is a concern, I say its better to make that leap now than waiting for something worse to happen to Hidenori Kusaka (which may or may not have been caused from trying to keep up with all the Pokemon stuff). Obviously I'm not implying to drop him, infact it would probably be wise to involve him in choosing new authors as they'll have to share notes and better to do that with people who are familiar with each other (even if they only met during the interview process). If they find someone who can match Hidenori Kusaka's style he could even give them the plans he had for the series that are still waiting to be finished and focus on the ones he wants to personally work on (which would hopefully be better for his health as he could work at a more manageable trait).

 

[R_N]

Sounds like Pokemon Company should take a note from the anime and, instead of having one manga-ka work on all of them, hire a different one whenever a new gen/game comes out.

And yes, I realize what I said is probably blasphemy because the magna has a heavy amount of lore & continuity, but if Hidenori Kusaka is having a hard time keeping up due to the the insistence of releasing a new game/content each year, plus his health is a concern, I say its better to make that leap now than waiting for something worse to happen to Hidenori Kusaka (which may or may not have been caused from trying to keep up with all the Pokemon stuff). Obviously I'm not implying to drop him, infact it would probably be wise to involve him in choosing new authors as they'll have to share notes and better to do that with people who are familiar with each other (even if they only met during the interview process). If they find someone who can match Hidenori Kusaka's style he could even give them the plans he had for the series that are still waiting to be finished and focus on the ones he wants to personally work on (which would hopefully be better for his health as he could work at a more manageable trait).

I mean its not like this is The Manga
There's always been other mangas, and they've never really pushed any of them; there's a few statements from a few Pokemon creators for Adventures but that's about it (& probably more because of how long its ran and relative fan base). Otherwise there would probably be Adventures arcs for Let's Go, Arceus and SV going right now alongside USUM & SWSH.

Adventures has also already had author & artist changes through the years iirc.

 

[Nickeljorn]

To be fair, in some languages, there are names that are basically objects or colors. So it's not necessarly an impossible scenario.

Idk it might purely be a translation difficulty. There aren't really equivalent first names that work as evoking Sword and Shield unless you go the route the B2W2 chapter took and call them Sharpe and Thebe or something. They're the only ones that's been the case for, though - everyone else is still Sun, Moon, Black, White, etc.

I'm not sure if they've started the ScVi chapter yet but I don't see why the two leads there wouldn't just be called "Scarlet" and "Violet". They're both what most people think of as female names but then "Ruby" isn't typically a boy's name in modern usage (though there are variants and derivatives like Reuben/Ruben and Ruby is a fairly common nickname for people called that)

Good points, but now I'm thinking about the title thing and how it fits for the remakes (not counting Let's Go).
HGSS and ORAS are the only ones where the "added" words (heart/soul and Omega/Alpha) don't have anything to do with the original title, FireRed and LeafGreen are more "enhanced", and Brilliant and Shining are the words you would associate with the original names the most. So it kind of goes in order of how much the games change from the games they are remakes of. But this was only about games from SM onward which would exclude all remakes but BDSP.

 

[Karxrida]

I also think the English names of characters in the Adventures manga changing from the game titles being their first names to their last names is "preparing" for the names being more out there as there are fewer and fewer options? Though my headcanon was that naming your children after colors, gemstones, etc. is a normal thing in the Adventures universe.

The Japanese names for the BW2 protags (Lack-Two and Whi-Two) and were supremely stupid and probably informed decisions on later translations.

 

[pika pal]

Brilliant and Shining are the words you would associate with the original names the most.

Crazy and Pink come to mind for me first on Diamond at least

 

[AztecCroc]

Iron Fist being a 20% boost. Tough Claws, which boots everything Iron Fist does and more, is 30% and the similarly limited Strong Jaw is a 50% boost.

That would be because Iron Fist is from Gen 4 while the other two are from Gen 6. Most Gen 3 and 4 abilities are very weak compared to ones from Gens 5 and on.

 

[R_N]

I'll come to Strong Jaw's defense a little: at inception there were fewer "biting" moves and they tended to be lower power.
Like you had Bite (60), Crunch (80), the elemental Fangs (65), Poison Fang (50) and Hyper Fang (which no one could use with anyway)
Only 2 moves broke 65 and one of them wasn't even available on a Strong Jaw pokemon until Gen 7.

So they gave it a bigger, more notable boost because of it.

Punching Moves in comparison had a wider range of moves & powers.

Still by this point it definitely should get a power bump. Either 30% so it at least has parity with Tough Claws or 50% to match Strong Jaw & Sharpness. Or split the difference, 40%

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Also worth noting that for the most part, most Pokemon that do get Strong Jaw tend to not get STAB on most of the moves that get boosts from said abilities. Tyrantrum was the first to get the ability at first and none of the biting moves that existed were things that it got STAB on. A select few Pokemon who get the ability now have STAB on one or two biting moves, like Hisuian Avalugg and Boltund, and of course Dracovish with Fishious Rend being famous at this point, but in addition to most biting moves being relatively weak to start most don't get STAB on them.

Sharpness is a lesser case, because all of its users get STAB from at least one or two slicing moves, but slicing moves have a similarly low BP range as well: they tend to hang around 70 Base Power for the most part, and the strongest one to my knowledge is Leaf Blade at 90 BP, which to my knowledge no Pokemon with Sharpness at present gets STAB on. Most of the slicing moves are either the Slash variants which are all 70 BP, Ceaseless Edge and Stone Axe at 65 BP, and vice versa. So they benefit from that substantial of a boost as well.

Iron Fist could admittedly use a boost, but in addition to the wider range of powers the punching moves tend to have, most Iron Fist users naturally get STAB on several punching moves. Since most of them are Fighting-type, and punching moves embody a lot of Fighting-type moves, even a 20% boost is still substantial in addition to an innately high power. Pawmot is an Electric-type and also gets STAB on Thunder Punch. The weaker punching moves include Bullet Punch and Mach Punch, which are priority moves, and compensate for their lack of raw power with the ability to always strike first, and the only other generic punching moves are the elemental punches, which admittedly are a bit on the weaker side but are strong enough innately to be good coverage attacks.

In recent times they have still acknowledged the punching usage method with the new item Punching Glove with boosts Punching moves by 10% and stacks with Iron Fist.

Tough Claws and Iron Fist also innately have different flavors which assign them to different Pokémon. Iron Fist usually involves, as the name involves, Pokemon with fists and who specialize in punching in combat. Tough Claws has a wider range of moves it boosts but it's mainly assigned to Pokemon who have sharp claws and while a few like Mega Charizard X and Mega Metagross, both of who are currently absent atm, get punching moves, most who get the ability don't. Barbaracle, Duskanroc, and Perrserker are the only ones who have the ability currently in the Switch games and none of them learn any punching moves naturally.

Admittedly Iron Fist could use a boost nowadays, yes, but there's usually a bit of a difference in philosophy based on a combination of flavor, the kinds of moves that fall under the usage method, and the Pokemon who actually get the ability that decide things in these cases I imagine.

 

[Pikachu315111]

I'll come to Strong Jaw's defense a little: at inception there were fewer "biting" moves and they tended to be lower power.
Like you had Bite (60), Crunch (80), the elemental Fangs (65), Poison Fang (50) and Hyper Fang (which no one could use with anyway)
Only 2 moves broke 65 and one of them wasn't even available on a Strong Jaw pokemon until Gen 7.

So they gave it a bigger, more notable boost because of it.

Punching Moves in comparison had a wider range of moves & powers.

Still by this point it definitely should get a power bump. Either 30% so it at least has parity with Tough Claws or 50% to match Strong Jaw & Sharpness. Or split the difference, 40%

Seeing how with Z-Moves and Max Moves they seemingly gave each Move it's own Base Power increase (or at least had some calculation that went by Base Power range), maybe they should do the same with these Abilities. Moves with:

• Power 60 or below get a 50% boost (Move with 60 Power will raise to 90)
• Power 65-80 get a 1/3rd boost (86 - 106, rounded down)
• Power 85 or above get a 25% boost (Move with 85 Power will raise to 106, rounded down)

I think it's a fair compromise, if they want to add anything else it would probably be an additional side effect such as increasing a chance of a certain secondary effect or bypassing certain Abilities or field effects for the affected Moves.

 

[R_N]

Dramps post in the other thread reminds me: Fog in Legends arceus, because it's obnoxious at a base level that shouldn't have ever been brought back Sinnoh reimagining be damned, extra obnoxious because moves missing are so much harsher in LA due to the turn system and triple obnoxious because fog is subtle enough to not be obvious that it's around until moves start missing and you realize the light mist that could have just been atmosphere is actually deep fog.

 

[Hugin]

The Gen VI Horde battles. I actually like the concept, but if you don't have a spread move, they're SUPER not worth it. The mons are too low-level for the XP to be remotely relevant, they love spamming status moves(especially growl and sand attack), and the sheer volume of turns takes way too long(5 turns, 15 moves total at a minimum if you don't have Bulldoze or Surf). If they bring it back they need to seriously rebalance things so it's not a miserable slog.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

The Gen VI Horde battles. I actually like the concept, but if you don't have a spread move, they're SUPER not worth it. The mons are too low-level for the XP to be remotely relevant, they love spamming status moves(especially growl and sand attack), and the sheer volume of turns takes way too long(5 turns, 15 moves total at a minimum if you don't have Bulldoze or Surf). If they bring it back they need to seriously rebalance things so it's not a miserable slog.

I'm of the same thinking re the trainer horde battles in ORAS. It was touted as a cool new feature in trailers/prerelease media and it happens... twice in two highly scripted moments in the game itself.

And it's exactly the same problem: the trainers are too weak to be challenging. Sure, the second time is against five Pokemon with Intimidate, but that doesn't mean too much when you can just use Surf without consequence because they're all level 25. At that point in the story your party will be around level 50 so anything that weak just plinks ineffectively away at you. Even if they use Scary Face or something it barely makes a difference.

It does kind of annoy me that hordes are on paper a great way to EV train (with a power item and Pokerus you're potentially gaining, what, 50 EVs per fight?) precisely because I can't say I've ever bothered with them because Super Training also exists. Sure, it's a bit slower, it's generally less hassle than going out and having to hunt through grass for a rare spawn and provides a way to train something weak. So I sort of look at hordes in the context of EVs and think "oh yeah that'd be cool" but I know I'll never bother.

Practically speaking I think the only thing that makes hordes worthwhile to me is that it's a fun way to find a Pokemon with a hidden ability. Particularly if it happens to be one like Volt Absorb: use Discharge and everything faints except the one you want to catch. Cheap and easy.

 

[R_N]

I'm of the same thinking re the trainer horde battles in ORAS. It was touted as a cool new feature in trailers/prerelease media and it happens... twice in two highly scripted moments in the game itself.

And it's exactly the same problem: the trainers are too weak to be challenging. Sure, the second time is against five Pokemon with Intimidate, but that doesn't mean too much when you can just use Surf without consequence because they're all level 25. At that point in the story your party will be around level 50 so anything that weak just plinks ineffectively away at you. Even if they use Scary Face or something it barely makes a difference.

It does kind of annoy me that hordes are on paper a great way to EV train (with a power item and Pokerus you're potentially gaining, what, 50 EVs per fight?) precisely because I can't say I've ever bothered with them because Super Training also exists. Sure, it's a bit slower, it's generally less hassle than going out and having to hunt through grass for a rare spawn and provides a way to train something weak. So I sort of look at hordes in the context of EVs and think "oh yeah that'd be cool" but I know I'll never bother.

Practically speaking I think the only thing that makes hordes worthwhile to me is that it's a fun way to find a Pokemon with a hidden ability. Particularly if it happens to be one like Volt Absorb: use Discharge and everything faints except the one you want to catch. Cheap and easy.

The trainer horde battles, earnestly, felt like a joke.

Like you don't design that and not do it as a laugh. 5 Mightyena that all proc Intimidate indepedentantly
It was funny they bothered advertising them


Also Horde Battles can be instantly spawned with Sweet Scent or Honey. It's definitely the quicker method with that.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

The trainer horde battles, earnestly, felt like a joke.

Like you don't design that and not do it as a laugh. 5 Mightyena that all proc Intimidate indepedentantly
It was funny they bothered advertising them

Oh yeah for sure it's a joke moment, I just... wanted a tough fight. Like there's quite a few moments in the games where you get surrounded by enemies which can be reasonably tough to handle (Emerald makes you fight 3 Magma grunts consecutively, BW has a very similar moment with 4 Plasma grunts, HGSS makes you fight the Kimono Girls one-by-one). It just could have been made a lot more conceptually interesting.

Also Horde Battles can be instantly spawned with Sweet Scent or Honey. It's definitely the quicker method with that.

Yeah but you have to have enough Honey or a Pokemon with Sweet Scent on hand and that's not always the case. Also as I said, low-level Pokemon can't take on horde battles without aid (and sometimes you may not want them levelling up anyway).

 

[R_N]

Yeah but you have to have enough Honey or a Pokemon with Sweet Scent on hand and that's not always the case. Also as I said, low-level Pokemon can't take on horde battles without aid (and sometimes you may not want them levelling up anyway).

If you are dedicated to wanting to EV Train, it's pretty trivial to prepare for it. A bunch of Pokemon are available fairly early with Sweet Scent in both XY & ORAS.
EVs are shared with EXP Share on, so the weaker Pokemon doesn't need to even enter battle; and yes if you are training multiple Pokemon you will have to box them but this isn't that much of an issue if you are putting in the effort to EV train anyway
And since the Pokemon in the horde are low level, you're not going to earn much EXP so the handful of reasons why you'd want to avoid levelling up probably won't come into play.

I'm not saying Super Training is worthless by any means, just that Horde Encounters are in fact quite quick to set up and get the EVs. The situation where it's not worth doing are pretty marginal unless you just really like super training instead.

 

[Imperial Magala]

Tyrunt getting Strong Jaw bugs me because you would think the elemental fangs would be part of its moveset to give it coverage, and you'll be right...

...as egg moves, meaning unless you get a female Tyrunt from the gift fossil and breed, you're stuck with Bite and Crunch as the only biting moves. Head Smash+Rock Head does more damage than Strong Jaw+Thunder/Ice/Fire Fang, even with super effective hits, so even in the one place where hidden abilities aren't a major factor in (the main game), it can't take proper advantage of Strong Jaw.

Compare this to Amaura getting Normal type moves in its level-up moveset like Take Down, Round, Nature Power and Hyper Beam to synergize with Refrigerate, and it really feels like an oversight.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

The Magma/Aqua quintuplets were funny as hell though. The first time you battle them is a pushover but the second time they had five Mightyena who despite being low levelled all had Intimidate, which led to a -5 Attack on entry. For us experienced players that's not really much since we know how to play around that but kids probably would be thrown off by Intimidate x5 if they're using a physical attacker.

But in either case it was pretty amusing to me, to say the least.

Honestly I feel like they could've gone even farther with Trainer Horde battles as a concept though. Like imagine if you had a 5-on-1 battle with five Klinklang, all with Plus and Minus that alternate, and they split Gear Up+Magnetic Flix+Shift Gear between them with a mix of Gear Grind and special attacks, that would be utterly hilarious, maybe even legit dangerous depending on execution.

They're not hard per se but they can be legit funny. I also think there were a few cases where they used Horde Battles being at lower levels to allow catching of an unevolved Pokemon in the same place where their evolved form was available normally, like Vanillite or Larvitar for instance, which made for nice worldbuilding.

 

[Samtendo09]

Tyrunt getting Strong Jaw bugs me because you would think the elemental fangs would be part of its moveset to give it coverage, and you'll be right...

View attachment 533667

...as egg moves, meaning unless you get a female Tyrunt from the gift fossil and breed, you're stuck with Bite and Crunch as the only biting moves. Head Smash+Rock Head does move damage than Strong Jaw+Thunder/Ice/Fire Fang, even with super effective hits, so even in the one place where hidden abilities aren't a major factor in (the main game), it can't take proper advantage of Strong Jaw.

If Mirror Herb were to be introduced much earlier, that wouldn’t be as big of an issue.

Mirror Herb is certainly a near-foolproof “failsafe” item for Egg Moves the more I see issues like this. We all wished it were introduced earlier.

 

[Imperial Magala]

Adaptability is an ability that boosts the power of STAB in a Pokemon, often letting Pokemon eschew coverage in favor of raw power. My issue is that that's the complete opposite of what being adaptable is. Adaptability normally means being able to adapt and change to different environments and whatever a situation calls for. Protean is a great synonym of Adaptability. Eevee getting Adaptability means they recognize this definition. How Adaptability works in Pokemon is more Specialization i.e. being an expert of a singular trait. Unless there's some Japanese wordplay at work here since Adaptability is a direct translation, I think the devs thought "having adaptability" was the same as "being adept/ being an expert at something". Maybe Adaptability is meant to read as "Adept-Ability"?

 

[misterdarvus]

Head Smash+Rock Head does move damage than Strong Jaw+Thunder/Ice/Fire Fang, even with super effective hits, so even in the one place where hidden abilities aren't a major factor in (the main game), it can't take proper advantage of Strong Jaw.

Here's my annoyed thing in Pokemon: a Tyranosaurus Rex is more famous for smashing its head than a Pachycephalosaurus.

 

[TrainerGoldAlt]

I'd say what annoys me a bit despite Pokemon being this global franchise, there is still no voice acting for the main series titles..

 

[R_N]

Adaptability is an ability that boosts the power of STAB in a Pokemon, often letting Pokemon eschew coverage in favor of raw power. My issue is that that's the complete opposite of what being adaptable is. Adaptability normally means being able to adapt and change to different environments and whatever a situation calls for. Protean is a great synonym of Adaptability. Eevee getting Adaptability means they recognize this definition. How Adaptability works in Pokemon is more Specialization i.e. being an expert of a singular trait. Unless there's some Japanese wordplay at work here since Adaptability is a direct translation, I think the devs thought "having adaptability" was the same as "being adept/ being an expert at something". Maybe Adaptability is meant to read as "Adept-Ability"?

I assume they want it something like, they're so adaptable because they're so good at something
Corphish can live anywhere, because it can hit you like a truck with water.

 

[Rapti]

I'd say what annoys me a bit despite Pokemon being this global franchise, there is still no voice acting for the main series titles..

There's really no excuse for this

"but theyd have to traslatez the game to so many laguagez"

Inexcusable

 

[R_N]

There's really no excuse for this

"but theyd have to traslatez the game to so many laguagez"

Inexcusable

especially if they do the thing a lot of games do and just have VO for major scenes (& maybe a few minor ones) and then just little barks for misc lines to add spice. Like Zelda! Or, for a game without any real voice acting at all, Mario.

Also, or alternatively, they probably wouldn't bother translating the game's voice acting to every language, a number of games don't. "Pokemon is world wi--" they wont care

e: God honestly going back to the barks thing, I would seriously be willing to settle for that. Even just vague noises, it would add so much more life to the dialog sequences.
it was nice that the Legends Arceus protagonists had little grunts and yells while controlling them, but made it even weirder that none of that was present for any other character

 

[Nickeljorn]

especially if they do the thing a lot of games do and just have VO for major scenes (& maybe a few minor ones) and then just little barks for misc lines to add spice. Like Zelda! Or, for a game without any real voice acting at all, Mario.

Also, or alternatively, they probably wouldn't bother translating the game's voice acting to every language, a number of games don't. "Pokemon is world wi--" they wont care

e: God honestly going back to the barks thing, I would seriously be willing to settle for that. Even just vague noises, it would add so much more life to the dialog sequences.
it was nice that the Legends Arceus protagonists had little grunts and yells while controlling them, but made it even weirder that none of that was present for any other character

I always thought that if there was ever voice acting in a mainline Pokemon game besides the LA protagonists, it would just be major scenes for a while, then progress to that + barks, then full voice acting, like what Fire Emblem did.