(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[R_N]

We do learn the metric system as part of our science classes

Ignoring any dumb nationalism reasons (have you seen the dumb shit we go through for this over the years....), the switch probably isn't ever happening because of how much everything domestically would have to change to accommodate it. We can barely do that with things that actually matter, much less measurements with conversions most computers can just handle it.

I am surprised that the metric measurements aren't in Pokemon as a toggle, just as part of the world wide push the series has. Even just something as simple as "they display based on region of your switch"

 

[Ironmage]

At the very least the series generally avoids the need to state volumetric measurements. The messed-up denominations of customary length and weight are mostly deprecated (fun fact: an acre isn't even a square area: its one chain times one furlong), but the horrors of volumes are plainly visible.

 

[Sonikku A]

...could finally ditch this imperial BS, but then I remembered how ASS the Pokemon sizes are.

Fixed

 

[Coronis]

At the very least the series generally avoids the need to state volumetric measurements. The messed-up denominations of customary length and weight are mostly deprecated (fun fact: an acre isn't even a square area: its one chain times one furlong), but the horrors of volumes are plainly visible.

I don’t even know what any of these words mean.

 

[KalosianPorygon]

I don’t even know what any of these words mean.

I thought Furlong was just a surname.

While we are talking about measurements, the height stat of Pokémon is so confusing. Case in point, is Furret measured from head to feet or from head to the tip of the tail? Because depending on how you measure it, Furret is either a really big ferret or a ridiculously humongous one.

 

[R_N]

I thought Furlong was just a surname.

While we are talking about measurements, the height stat of Pokémon is so confusing. Case in point, is Furret measured from head to feet or from head to the tip of the tail? Because depending on how you measure it, Furret is either a really big ferret or a ridiculously humongous one.

People bring this up a lot -and to an extent I kind of get it because the early dexes that had size comparison couldn't properly account for it with how they display them- but if you just look at the Pokemon, it usually becomes pretty obvious that it's length wise for something that is..well... long

 

[Coronis]

I thought Furlong was just a surname.

While we are talking about measurements, the height stat of Pokémon is so confusing. Case in point, is Furret measured from head to feet or from head to the tip of the tail? Because depending on how you measure it, Furret is either a really big ferret or a ridiculously humongous one.

Yeah I think it varies from Pokemon to Pokemon, which is still confusing.

 

[Axiemeister]

it doesn't help that the anime, which is most of our reference when it comes to sizes, takes liberties about it quite often.

for instance, here is 1'0"/30cm tall flapple next to 1'4"/40cm tall pikachu in the anime.

 

[Kin+ak (✧∇✧)]

Bro the flapple Is Just far From pikachu. The perspective bro.

 

[KalosianPorygon]

it doesn't help that the anime, which is most of our reference when it comes to sizes, takes liberties about it quite often.

for instance, here is 1'0"/30cm tall flapple next to 1'4"/40cm tall pikachu in the anime.

Bro the flapple Is Just far From pikachu. The perspective bro.

Kin+ak (✧∇✧) Please explain Drew's Roselia then. For reference, this thing is 1'00"/0.3 m tall according to the Pokédex.

Giant Pokémon confirmed?

 

[DrPumpkinz]

How to pronounce magma:

MAG-ma​

How to pronounce escargot:

es-car-GO​

Most natural way to pronounce Magcargo:

mag-CAR-go​

 

[R_N]

How to pronounce magma:

MAG-ma​

How to pronounce escargot:

es-car-GO​

Most natural way to pronounce Magcargo:

mag-CAR-go​

i've heard escargo pronounced with emphasis on the CAR rather than the go far more in my life than the go, personally

 

[Rapti]

While we are talking about measurements, the height stat of Pokémon is so confusing. Case in point, is Furret measured from head to feet or from head to the tip of the tail? Because depending on how you measure it, Furret is either a really big ferret or a ridiculously humongous one.

In all due fairness, the games have already explained this

 

[KalosianPorygon]

How to pronounce magma:

MAG-ma​

How to pronounce escargot:

es-car-GO​

Most natural way to pronounce Magcargo:

mag-CAR-go​

Shout out to anyone who pronounces "Virizion" (Viridian + champion) with an "eye" sound, e.g. the Pokédex 3D app. Makes me want to punch anyone in the face. With a +2 Leaf Blade. Followed by a Sacred Sword between the legs.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Was idly thinking earlier about whether it's possible to have a team that covers all 18 types at once, or at least as near to 18 as it's possible to get* - because while you can obviously only have a maximum of 12 base types on a team, surely there are several Pokemon with interchangeable forms which swap types, artificially adding to your number.

But actually no, there's... very few Pokemon which change type with form changes? I could have sworn there were more. To clarify, there are plenty of Pokemon which acquire or lose a type (i.e. go from single-typed to dual-typed or vice versa) like Darmanitan and Shaymin, and plenty who simply swap around either their primary or secondary type, like Rotom and Oricorio, but I could have sworn there were a lot more alternate forms that change their type entirely.

But no. Looking at the list of Pokemon with alternate forms, the only ones who change type outright are...

• Castform - goes from pure Normal to pure Fire, Water, or Ice
• Arceus - can be any of the 18 types, but only one at once
• Silvally - as above

This strikes me as such a massive gaping hole from a creative standpoint: after nine generations I'm really surprised that the potential for this mechanic still remains (almost entirely) untapped. Of course there are several Pokemon with non-interchangeable forms who are completely different types: Vulpix, Sandshrew, Darumaka, Tauros, et al. But a Pokemon which was, for instance, pure Water-type most of the time but could become pure Fire-type some of the time is a novel concept and a really cool idea, and it's funny that this hasn't been done.

Is it that it'd potentially be too powerful? I don't really see that. If we were to use the Water-becomes-Fire model as a concept, presumably it wouldn't actually learn that many Fire moves anyway since the base form would be Water (that's assuming the change were an entirely temporary in-battle one - it could just as easily be a prompted at-will out-of-battle change triggered with an item or something). Sure, a Fire-type which learns several Water moves would have an easy answer to any Rock- or Ground-types that tried to counter it, but it's not as if there aren't existing Fire-types that learn Grass, Steel, Water, and Fighting moves. So I don't think that can be it.

But yeah. Kind of feel like they missed a trick here.


*Terastallization aside, of course

 

[Ironmage]

The mechanics of the Starmobiles are all over the place. About the only thing that makes sense is particularly high HP for a purpose-built boss. Why does the only one with a damage-focused special STAB have lower SPA than a previous fight? Why does speed not scale with an increase in difficulty? Why is the only possible benefit of Misty Terrain the ability for it to be removed with Steel Roller? Why is something expressly engineered in-universe way less internally consistent than the results of random mutations?

 

[pika pal]

Was idly thinking earlier about whether it's possible to have a team that covers all 18 types at once, or at least as near to 18 as it's possible to get* - because while you can obviously only have a maximum of 12 base types on a team, surely there are several Pokemon with interchangeable forms which swap types, artificially adding to your number.

But actually no, there's... very few Pokemon which change type with form changes? I could have sworn there were more. To clarify, there are plenty of Pokemon which acquire or lose a type (i.e. go from single-typed to dual-typed or vice versa) like Darmanitan and Shaymin, and plenty who simply swap around either their primary or secondary type, like Rotom and Oricorio, but I could have sworn there were a lot more alternate forms that change their type entirely.

But no. Looking at the list of Pokemon with alternate forms, the only ones who change type outright are...

• Castform - goes from pure Normal to pure Fire, Water, or Ice
• Arceus - can be any of the 18 types, but only one at once
• Silvally - as above

This strikes me as such a massive gaping hole from a creative standpoint: after nine generations I'm really surprised that the potential for this mechanic still remains (almost entirely) untapped. Of course there are several Pokemon with non-interchangeable forms who are completely different types: Vulpix, Sandshrew, Darumaka, Tauros, et al. But a Pokemon which was, for instance, pure Water-type most of the time but could become pure Fire-type some of the time is a novel concept and a really cool idea, and it's funny that this hasn't been done.

Is it that it'd potentially be too powerful? I don't really see that. If we were to use the Water-becomes-Fire model as a concept, presumably it wouldn't actually learn that many Fire moves anyway since the base form would be Water (that's assuming the change were an entirely temporary in-battle one - it could just as easily be a prompted at-will out-of-battle change triggered with an item or something). Sure, a Fire-type which learns several Water moves would have an easy answer to any Rock- or Ground-types that tried to counter it, but it's not as if there aren't existing Fire-types that learn Grass, Steel, Water, and Fighting moves. So I don't think that can be it.

But yeah. Kind of feel like they missed a trick here.


*Terastallization aside, of course

I think this is down to a limitation of their design philosophy. The Type is part of what defines the Pokemon as a creature/character, and you get very few instances of a Pokemon having certain traits but not one of the types those traits bring to mind (EX: Pokemon living in Water tend to have Water or Bug typing, Subterranean livers usually have Rock/Steel/Ground, etc).

The non-changeable forms like Vulpix and Sandshrew get to be so because they live in a different environment and thus are biologically distinct creatures from the other typed version. Meanwhile the 3 Pokemon with fully-changeable type forms are 2 Artificially created Pokemon and basically an Avatar of a Creator-God level entity, none of which play by natural biology rules.

You do get a few Pokemon who change or adapt types even without Form changes but even these tend to be inherent to their flavor or concept: Dhelmise has Steelworker since it's Ghost Algae enspiriting a Metal object, Greninja and Kecleon get Protean/Color Change in reference to Camouflaging Reptiles, etc. And even a lot of the Forme Based type changes/add-ons have a very specific factor to the Mon's concept that isn't replicable by other creatures (Rotom Enspirits Appliances, Ogerpon is the only thing that can use its signature masks right, etc)

 

[R_N]

The mechanics of the Starmobiles are all over the place. About the only thing that makes sense is particularly high HP for a purpose-built boss. Why does the only one with a damage-focused special STAB have lower SPA than a previous fight? Why does speed not scale with an increase in difficulty? Why is the only possible benefit of Misty Terrain the ability for it to be removed with Steel Roller? Why is something expressly engineered in-universe way less internally consistent than the results of random mutations?

The special-focused STAB one is Mela and she's probably going to have Sun up and is using 140 BP. It probably intentionally using a lower special attack because it's already hitting like a truck and they didn't want it doing overkill. I assume during testing they found that having higher Sp Atk than that was too overwhelming for what's a relatively early encounter in the grand scheme

Why they didn't just give it flamethrower in that case who knows, maybe they liked the flavor better.

 

[pika pal]

The special-focused STAB one is Mela and she's probably going to have Sun up and is using 140 BP. It probably intentionally using a lower special attack because it's already hitting like a truck and they didn't want it doing overkill. I assume during testing they found that having higher Sp Atk than that was too overwhelming for what's a relatively early encounter in the grand scheme

Why they didn't just give it flamethrower in that case who knows, maybe they liked the flavor better.

I think the Flavor is the answer. A Flamethrower on a big car is a bit extreme for Team Star just trying to intimidate opponents moreso than actually hurt people, whereas Overheat is something that can be chalked up to the actual engine (Revavroom even gets the latter but not the former via TM). This would be consistent with what I can see in the only other Pokemon that gets Overheat without Flamethrower seems to be another mechanical-transportation based Pokemon in Miraidon (Cyclizar can learn Fire Fang via TM but no natural Fire moves compared to Koraidon), and in that case it's by level up even. So I think Overheat is meant to evoke an overclocked sort of power output vs Flamethrower being things that can produce more controlled heat/fire (and the "Normals get everything" clause).

This isn't airtight since some of the other Starmobiles do have non-learnable moves for Revavroom, but they're at least things that seem to fit that "Intimidate more than Injure" idea like Snarl (i.e. scare the fight out of opponents to make them weaker hits) on the Dark Mobile or Flame Charge (hit lightly but threatening to be more imposing on another blow) on the Poison one, and they feel generic enough that I could almost see them being Oversights.

The mechanics of the Starmobiles are all over the place. About the only thing that makes sense is particularly high HP for a purpose-built boss. Why does the only one with a damage-focused special STAB have lower SPA than a previous fight? Why does speed not scale with an increase in difficulty? Why is the only possible benefit of Misty Terrain the ability for it to be removed with Steel Roller? Why is something expressly engineered in-universe way less internally consistent than the results of random mutations?

As far as the engineering thing I think it fair to think about how the Starmobiles were still ultimately things a bunch of bullied school kids put together to look imposing moreso than be survival mechanisms as happens in nature with Mutations over time. Ortega is kind of pompous and gaudy in how he dresses so I chalk Misty Surge up to being a show-off (Watsonian), or a remnant of older design ideas (Doylist), like maybe the Starmobile would have been Status Vulnerable earlier in development like Raid bosses and most "fake" Raid bosses like the Titans.

This is also I guess assuming the designs are to be 100% proper/optimal for battling you as one guy raiding the base, where the Starmobiles were built for the group to go stand up to a bunch of people at the Academy and presumably wouldn't be acting by themselves or all as a last mon at once (say Ortega's Fairies lose sooner than Eri's Fighting Pokemon, Misty Surge probably does good for her Annihilape for example). They just whip them out at the Team Star base because they're still big ass Machine Pokemon aces even if they're not specifically prepared for someone like you.

 

[Coronis]

This isn't airtight

That would explain the overheating though of course.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I think this is down to a limitation of their design philosophy. The Type is part of what defines the Pokemon as a creature/character, and you get very few instances of a Pokemon having certain traits but not one of the types those traits bring to mind (EX: Pokemon living in Water tend to have Water or Bug typing, Subterranean livers usually have Rock/Steel/Ground, etc).

The non-changeable forms like Vulpix and Sandshrew get to be so because they live in a different environment and thus are biologically distinct creatures from the other typed version. Meanwhile the 3 Pokemon with fully-changeable type forms are 2 Artificially created Pokemon and basically an Avatar of a Creator-God level entity, none of which play by natural biology rules.

You do get a few Pokemon who change or adapt types even without Form changes but even these tend to be inherent to their flavor or concept: Dhelmise has Steelworker since it's Ghost Algae enspiriting a Metal object, Greninja and Kecleon get Protean/Color Change in reference to Camouflaging Reptiles, etc. And even a lot of the Forme Based type changes/add-ons have a very specific factor to the Mon's concept that isn't replicable by other creatures (Rotom Enspirits Appliances, Ogerpon is the only thing that can use its signature masks right, etc)

Sure, and the point about artificial Pokemon is a good one - there's also often external influence in type-changing, as you alluded to, based around items and artefacts that presumably didn't always exist alongside the species that use them.

Prior to regional forms being a thing I think I'd probably have been more resistant to the idea that a Pokemon's type could change dynamically (outside of moves that do it deliberately like Soak, Camouflage, or Roost). But as the series goes on a lot of these concepts have been twisted and reimagined and I suppose I've come to expect - or at least hope for - more unprecedented or unexplored concepts like this, as long as they don't feel completely at odds with what's already been established.

After all, we've got moves and abilities which convert one type to another - if we're to think that they're naturally-occurring phenomena, why shouldn't some Pokemon be able to change their types organically? To me it's not so far from the idea that types sometimes change upon evolution (even though, for the vast majority of Pokemon, they acquire a second type rather than outright switching from one to another). Bagon's dex entries, for instance, describe it wanting to fly so desperately that it eventually caused itself to evolve into a form with wings*.

Kecleon is the prime example of a completely natural and organic case of a Pokemon being able to shift types: it's just that the type changing isn't considered a different form(s). But if camouflaging reptiles are fine to use as a basis for dynamic type-shifting then I don't think it'd be so unthinkable to have, say, a placid Rock-type lizard which occasionally bursts with rage and temporarily becomes a flame-breathing Fire-type, or a Pokemon that's possessed by an ancient spirit which occasionally takes control of its body and makes it pure Ghost-type, or a Pokemon which has ancient Dragon-type traits** that only awaken in moments of desperation and transform it into something else.

I think the fact that so many Pokemon that only change one type when they change form just makes me feel that we're tantalisingly close to this concept being more prevalent than it is. It's just that (the existing examples aside) none of them embrace it, even when they possibly could. Morpeko, for instance, could quite easily have been pure Electric in Full Belly Mode and pure Dark in Hangry mode.




*Side note, I really love Bagon's lore, it's incredibly adorable and heartwarming

**The dex entries of Mega Ampharos and Alolan Exeggutor allude to this idea, so it's not without basis

 

[Cheryl.]

Pyroar perplexes me. It was introduced in the same gen as Meowstic, whose different genders differ both in appearances and in abilities. Later down the line, we would get another evolution line in Basculegion who has more drastic differences between the two genders, differing in appearance and in stats! Pyroar differs... in appearance, and that's it. Not having the two genders differ in stats like Basculegion is one of the biggest missed opportunities imo, as they could have easily given one more physical attack to complement Moxie, while keeping the current special attacking stat spread on the other and giving it a different HA like how they did with the Meowstics. Instead, Pyroar has a waste of a good HA, and feels more barebones compared to the other unique gendered evolutions we've gotten even in the gen it was introduced in.

 

[misterdarvus]

Pyroar perplexes me. It was introduced in the same gen as Meowstic, whose different genders differ both in appearances and in abilities. Later down the line, we would get another evolution line in Basculegion who has more drastic differences between the two genders, differing in appearance and in stats! Pyroar differs... in appearance, and that's it. Not having the two genders differ in stats like Basculegion is one of the biggest missed opportunities imo, as they could have easily given one more physical attack to complement Moxie, while keeping the current special attacking stat spread on the other and giving it a different HA like how they did with the Meowstics. Instead, Pyroar has a waste of a good HA, and feels more barebones compared to the other unique gendered evolutions we've gotten even in the gen it was introduced in.

It's more like how they handle gender differences after they experimenting with minor sexual dimorphism in gen IV and threw it out of the window after Gen IV to only major sexual dimorphism with only select Pokemon.
Sometimes they designed that the male and female Pokemon will play different role. Unfortunately, Pyroar are just Lions and Lionesses, nothing more.

 

[R_N]

Speaking of, it bugs me that Sneasler doesn't have a gender difference but Sneasel-H does.
None of the other regional forms have gender differences, even if their original does, except for Sneasel so if 3/4ths of the "line" has them...the only reason I can think of is because they wanted the Noble Sneasler to be a girl and the extra long ear piece was meant to look feminine by design where as it'd be short if they retained the difference, but at that point why bother giving Sneasel-H the difference? Or maybe it could have been cute to flip the gender length?

 

[MoonlightRose]

Igglybuff's eyes are red and black when Jigglypuff and Wigglytuff both have blue eyes.