#Make the region story trainers and pokemon feel coherent

[sprucestairs]

oooooh pokemon company want to put all their energy into z-a sooooo bad. You will not release a half assed johto or unova game you want soooo badly to make a good game that everyone enjoys.

[cosmic-cd]

i need to get some pokemon thoughts out before i forget 'em, so don't mind me! hazel's galar run thoughts and headcanons ahead

so there's a lot of miscellaneous thoughts here but i'll try to keep it. a little more or less coherent?

before we get to galar, first thought iiis

i've had it be a thing for a while that hazel knows ingo & emmet, but other than her riding the trains in unova a lot ever since she was younger and ingo and emmet were working their way up the ranks to becoming the subway masters, i couldn't particularly think of a reason otherwise why she'd be close with them (to the point of going "oh they're like practically uncles to me")

but hazel is friends with the striaton bros. (seeing as the restaurant is just one route away, and hazel lives in accumula town, visiting striaton city frequently, especially to hang out in the dreamyard)

and, well.. one of my favorite areas in unova is Anville Town, and so-

hazel and cilan (via the anime-specific version of cilan's interest in trains. canon to me.) probably bonded over a mutual interest in trains, and similarly hazel would've probably gotten talking to ingo & emmet about the subway trains- i think it'd be cute if they all went trainspotting together in anville town on the weekends- as well as hazel riding the battle trains as she got more and more into pokemon battling

(and then seeing ingo later... earlier?? in hisui. would be a little more ouch)

anyways, galar thoughts and headcanons

1. this is more of a general headcanon, but i was thinking about it while listening to encounter themes- it'd be neat if trainers challenging each other to battles on routes was standardized- encounter themes are diagetic- like ringtones, whatever phone or device (i.e. x-transceiver, vs seeker, what have you) plays it when you cross paths with another trainer who's actively seeking battles, and said device displays current registered pokemon league information about that trainer

2. when hazel arrives in galar, leon ends up meeting her at the train station at the same time he's meeting with hop & gloria, and hazel has literally no clue who he is other than immediately developing a crush on the guy..... i think it'd be funny as an inverse of this if hop recognized hazel- not as just like, the girl who's staying in their family home's guest room while she's in the region, but also knowing her from watching her battles online (to which hazel has a horrified reaction due to Not Wanting To Be Perceived)

Hop: oh, your battles only have about 1,000 views each! pretty underrated if you ask me Hazel: a-- a thousand??? (urge to disappear into the woods until no one remembers she exists rising)

this is feasible to happen just because i think she might naturally develop a very small following due to. literally having a pikachu as her ace. and collecting gym badges and specifically never challenging the champion afterwards. which! i'm sure is a passtime other people have, but specifically sweeping gyms with a pikachu is a little funny

3. i feel like it'd be more authentic to the experience if hazel didn't know anybody in galar otherwise and nobody knew her- but also i realized sonia and bianca would make ADORABLE friends. the thought of sonia flipping from indifference to OHHHHH YOU'RE THE HAZEL BIANCA WAS TALKING ABOUT!!!!!

4. i don't know if i'll do much more than privately write out hazel's adventures for myself to enjoy, but if i ever did make a comic, i'd love to expand on the galar region and have leon accompany hazel a goodly amount (and similarly hazel accompany leon and help calm down aggressive dynamaxed pokemon) in between her chaperoning for hop & gloria on their adventure and challenging gyms herself

but i've been wanting to play with giving the story more flourish and fixing some of the issues that a lot of people have with the ending feeling rushed by giving rose more context to his motivations, more intrigue in the narrative with the legendary wolves, and one thing i'd really like to play with is the original heroes of galar and a one-off line from Ash in Journeys, which has him say the statue of the hero in one of the hotels looks like Leon)

i really like the narrative of rose being very romantic about how he sees the world and wanting to bring about a second darkest day so it can play out like a fairy tale and leon will be the hero in the starring role. that, wishing as hard as he can, he can shift fate itself and the hero king will tame the dragon and bring about a bright future. leon is written as a protagonist. sort of dorky outfit, using a starter as his ace, went on his journey and became champion on his first try, had a rival who ended up becoming a pokemon professor, his theme LITERALLY has the hall of fame theme as a motif- he's written as someone who is literally the ideal protagonist and hero.

and it just.. doesn't work. he fails! i want to work with that so badly. i loved that so dearly about BW with that similar narrative with basically creating a new pair of heroes at ideological odds by forcing it to happen. in the case of the unovan dragons, it turned out for the better, but in the case of galar it's such an interesting twist on the same kind of story and i love both games so much!!!!

anyways. dusts hands off. there you go. i go back under my rock now and pretend i'm not completely obsessed with leon and SWSH. goodbye

[atlas-the-worldbuilder]

Final thoughts on Pokemon Sword/Shield

So in case you weren’t aware (which is most of you, I’m sure), a few months ago I started a Pokemon Shield blind Nuzlocke Run.  And recently, I completed the main portion of the Nuzlocke by defeating the Champion.  Having played through the game, though, I thought I’d give my final thoughts on it as a Pokemon fan, a gamer, and as a storyteller.

The Story & Characters

In all honesty, I rather enjoyed the main story of this game.  The Pokemon League has always been presented like a professional sport (at least in the anime/cartoon), so it’s fun to see the games taking that perspective and rolling with it.  It felt like an actual tournament/championship, to compete for the title in an officially organized manner, rather than just running a gauntlet of preset combatants.

In addition, I liked how they incorporated both the gym leaders and our rivals into the league story as not only combatants, but also as individuals with their own lives and aspirations.  Marnie and Team Yell are adorable, Hop is... mostly tolerable, thus far, but by far my favorite rival character has been Bede, the Psychic/Fairy trainer.  His haughty and prideful demeanor make him a delight to defeat, and his arc is a wonderful story to see unfold.  I’m really curious to see what he gets up to in the after-story! The Gym Leaders are also fun to meet and battle; the Pokemon games as a whole have been gradually attempting to give more and more character to each of the Gym Leaders you meet, beyond just trials to overcome on your journey to victory.  And while I always have a soft spot for the Hoenn & Sinnoh gyms, I like that they opted to have the Gym Leaders return in place of having more Elite Four members to fight  I only wish I could get more opportunities to get to know them better, cuz there’s some standout leaders from this batch which I truly enjoy!

My biggest complaint with Sword/Shield’s story, though, has been the “Heroic Quest” plotline which has become increasingly common these days.  I like the character of Sonia the researcher, and Oleana is satisfying to watch lose, my biggest complaint has been the pacing of the plot; the first 2/3rd’s of the story are us teaming with Sonia to gradually get the backstory revealed to us, and then in the last half hour, right as the Tournament’s getting underway, all the villains suddenly crawl from beneath the floorboards and run amok while you have to chase them down!  There didn’t feel like there was a proper buildup explaining why the villain wanted to summon the legendary Pokémon, especially one which we heard next to nothing about! This brings about an interesting idea, however... what if instead, they had completely forgone any Legendary-Summoning stories until after the league?  Honestly, I was way more invested challenging the gyms and fighting the champion than I was stopping the literal POKEMON APOCALYPSE from happening... so what if for future games, they saved those for after you became champion?  As a sort of test of your skills, to prove your worth to bear the mantle you have taken!  Maybe it wouldn’t have meshed well, maybe they needed to show of the game mascot more, I dunno...  it’s just my thoughts.

The GamePlay

THEY FINALLY LET US TURN OF THE GODS-FORSAKENED TUTORIALS!!!  PRAISE THE ALL-FATHER!!!

Ahem... In all honesty, I think I’d grown a bit too used to the 2nd screen of the DS-series games, but after a couple days of getting used to the mono-screen style again, I am pleased to say I found it very easy to settle back into.  Though there are still some features I wish would make a return (the HM moves as opposed to public transportation, poison’s effect while walking, wild double battles, etc.), there are alot of fun mechanics introduced and remedies to older problems that have been introduced!

I think one feature which hasn’t had much said about it is the introduction of the Poke-Jobs system; this system allows you to send your Pokémon out on timed “away missions” to gain both experience and items.  In the old days, if you wanted to passively level your pokemon, the only real option you had without introducing a second player was the Daycare center, and they could only raise two pokemon at once... and you had to pay for it.  With Poke-Jobs, though, I can send anywhere from 5-10 teammates out for whatever amount of time I want them to be out for, and then come back later to see them lively and with goodies to show for their work! At first, I didn’t think I’d get much use out of this system; I, like many players out there I’m sure, prefer to guide my pokemon’s training personally, honing their movesets and guiding their levelling and points the way I want from them.  But as I progressed further in my Nuzlocke, and as my daily life became busier and busier, I found myself sending my backup teammates out on jobs to keep them on par with my main team.  Given that the Move Deleter/Tutor and Name Rater are now services that have been rolled into the Pokemon Center, yet another good thing this series has done, I found it much easier to keep my reserve Pokemon prepared in case I needed a substitution. Some Nuzlocke “Purists” may call that taking the easy way out, but... frankly, I don’t have the willpower to do that much grinding.  I’m here to play a game and have fun doing it, dammit.

The Wild Area is another thing I’ve wanted to see from Pokemon for a long time - taking more steps to make the regions seem like an open world, with vast sprawling environments full of pokemon and secrets to uncover.  I’ll admit, though, the execution is... not entirely perfect.  While open expanses are fun to explore, the Wild Area did seem a bit... flat to traverse.  And while the weather mechanics translating into battle are fun to deal with, the same sets of wild pokemon appearing did start to wear me down.  I think what the Wild Area really needed, in the long run, was a system similar to how Black/White/Black2/White2 did - having seasonal progression ingame, where different pokemon would show up during different seasons, making the different places unique and novel all over again throughout the year. And for the record, many of my gripes with the Wild Area were addressed in the Isle of Armor’s expansion island.  VASTLY superior, and much more fun to navigate and traverse.

...I’ll openly admit this: I was not a fan of Mega Evolution when it was first introduced in X/Y.  I felt it was fine enough to see Pokemon battling without power boosts or “digi-volving” or whatever you wanna call it.  When Sun/Moon Introduced Z-Moves, it felt like a step in the right direction, but at the same time, I ended up not using it very often.  If I had to have a power boost to my pokemon, I would want it something that couldn’t be used as a crutch when the going gets tough - something that has a limited usability, and offers benefits specific to the time it’s being used. I say this because I initially approached Dynamax the same way: as just another power boost to level the playing field and shake up the battle meta which I don’t keep track of.  However, after barely surviving all 8 gym leaders without using a single dynamax pokemon, I decided to give it a chance: after having completed the Isle of Armor’s subplot and gaining access to the Max Soup, I fed it to my Toxtricity Spike, and started running dynamax raids.  As I started using it more and more, I started gaining a certain appreciation for it that I hadn’t before; this was something written in to being a unique cultural effect!  This literally is imagining Pokemon as Kaiju!  And for the most part, it works! While I still feel mega-lvl-power-boosts in pokemon are a huge waste, at the very least I can say Dynamax didn’t leave me with too bad a taste in my mouth.  I do hope, however, that Dynamax stays a Sword/Shield exclusive power; given it’s cultural importance in Galar, and how Mega-Evolution was in the previous generation, I think having power boosts specific to regions works better than having the same stuff used across the board for every meta onwards,

What Do I hope for the Future?

I can’t say for sure if they’ll release a sequel game for Sword/Shield, but if they do... I would want them to make these minor changes:

Hold off the Heroic plot for after the League plot; devote the main first half of the game to just the gyms and league story like was done here, and then save meeting uber-god-tier Pokémon for after you’ve claimed the title of Champion.

Having said that, fix the pacing of how the Eternatus/Darkest Day subplot feels as it’s being played out.  Offer us more insight into Rose and Oleana’s mindsets as they go about their business, and give us more coherent exposition from our field trips with Prof. Sonia. 

Fix how the Wild Area looks - give it more variations for each sub-region and offer more varieties of habitats, like in the Isle of Armor.  Or, alternatively, try to implement a seasonal mechanic to make the same areas change over the year, opening new paths and new avenues to explore!

Let Bede defeat Oleana.  Give my boy some closure.

Allow us to see and interact with the Gym Leaders outside of the gyms more.  I had, like, barely 2 lines of dialogue with Nessa, and even less for Milo.  Not asking for a whole lot, just a bit more to tie us into who they are as people.  Piers is best big brother.  <3

That’s all I had written for now.  If y’all want a biography of my champion team for my Shield Nuzlocke, let me know, and I’ll scrap a post together! <3

[girl-in-the-library]

I was talking with @blue-maelstrom​ and @pocket-pickett​ about Pokemon and the potential SwSh leaks and which versions we were going to get plus our starters (I think all three of us are going to get sword, I’m picking Sobble and both of them are picking Scorbunny, if I remember correctly.)

But then we started talking about how we felt about each of the generations of games, and I found it interesting the differences in our game preferences! They can tell you specifically their favorites, and while we didn’t talk much about gens 1-3 (which I know we all agree are very good, either because of nostalgia or actual quality) our favorites between 4-7 varied quite a bit.

I know we’re different people, so this shouldn’t actually surprise me, but it made me think about what my favorites in order would be, if we counted all the games in the main series (so that doesn’t include games like the Pokemon Dungeon series, Pokemon Rangers, Pokemon Stadiums, Coliseum, or Gale of Darkness, that weird one that had the Samurai, Trozei and Puzzle League and Hey You Pikachu and Pokemon Channel and Pokemon Let’s Go and Pokemon Rumble, and more that I can’t think of off the top of my head...so...yeah...)

And this is what I came up with:

This list includes games from Gen 1 to Gen 7...including the gen 1-3 remakes because Gen7 sort of made them back to be part of the mainline canon instead of just remakes: (1) Gen 2; Silver (reason: nostalgia) (2) Gen 3 remake Alpha Sapphire (3) Gen 1 original Yellow (4) Gen 3 original Sapphire (5) Gen 2 Crystal (6) Gen 7 Sun (7) Gen 5 Black 2 (8) Gen 6 X (9) Gen 1 remake FireRed (10) Gen 2 remake SoulSilver (11) Gen 5 Black (12) Gen 4 Pearl (13) Gen 3 Emerald NEVER PLAYED: Red, Blue, Gold, Ruby, Diamond, Platinum, White, White 2, Y, Omega Ruby, Moon, Ultra Moon, Ultra Sun

EXPLANATIONS AND ANALYSIS UNDER THE CUT

If not for nostalgia, Silver would probably fall down to number 3, and Alpha Sapphire and original Yellow would be pushed up to 1 and 2.

Also, this is actually reordered a bit from the version I sent to @pocket-pickett and @blue-maelstrom because I’ve thought about it more. Basically, I moved the FireRed and SoulSilver down further and moved up Sun, Black 2, and X and reordered those.

I never got to play Red and Blue because I didn’t have any money as a child (They came out when I was 6 years old, I didn’t get my first Gameboy until I was 8 years old, and my parents bought me Yellow version). The very first Pokemon game I bought for myself was Sapphire. So I missed the cultural milestone that was Red and Blue. 

Up through Gen 3 I would get one version and my sister would get the other so we could trade Pokemon and find out the differences in story...so, while she also got Yellow as her first game, she got Gold and Ruby while I got Silver and Sapphire. I also got Crystal and Emerald because I was more into Pokemon than she was. FireRed came out and even though my sister didn’t want to play anymore, I definitely wanted the chance to play through the original game with the choice of the original starters, so it didn’t matter to me that she wasn’t playing with me (though I think at that point none of my friends were playing either...I didn’t know anybody who had LeafGreen, at least).

By the time Gen 4 came out, I was definitely the only one I knew who was still playing Pokemon and I was definitely buying the games for myself. Interestingly, this was also the only time I went against my gut (which told me to buy Diamond) and I bought Pearl. This was my least favorite generation. I honestly don’t remember anything about the plot at all, nor any of the gym leaders, your rival, or any other characters. I didn’t like the new evolutions for previous Pokemon that didn't evolve (like Tangela to Tangrowth, Nosepass to Probopass, Misdreaveous to Mismagius, Sneasel to Weaville...etc) or making baby-regular to baby-regular-third (like Elekid-Electabuzz to Electrovere, Magby-Magmar to Magmortar, and Magnemite-Magneton to Magnezone...etc) which is kinda weird because I like the new  Alolan and Galarian forms because I think region divergent evolutions is incredibly cool...though I kinda don't like new Galarian evolutions to older lines (like Farfetch’d to Sirfetch’d or Zigzagoon-Linoone to Obstagoon?) I guess that falls into what I thought about before. The only thing I remember liking is Lucario, and that’s mostly because I honestly enjoyed the Pokemon movie Lucario and the Mystery of Mew. 

Point is, if I had no one to play with I didn’t see the point in purchasing Diamond (which would be basically the same as Pearl except with exclusive Pokemon) or Platinum (because I didn’t like the game too much.) ...I guess I was also in my genwunner phase really hard at that point...so I’m not sure I would have liked any new Pokemon game...though I guess my genwunner phase also included gens 2 and at least part of 3, though I remember being dismissive towards at least some of gen 3. Either way, I didn’t like Gen 4, and I don’t to this day. I’m actually looking forward to the remakes whenever those come out so I can revisit the plot and the Pokemon with fresh eyes, now that I’m no longer a genwunner and don’t care whether or not I have friends who play.

SoulSilver came out on Pi Day my senior year in high school and by then, Pokemon was cool again (I was considered a Pokemon Master by the other kids in my grade, even though I had friends who were far better players than I. I was just well known for my continued love of Pokemon. I had people asking me advice when they all brought their gameboy colors and Pokemon yellow games into French class.) My friends and I all went to the mall to get either SoulSilver or HeartGold (yay! I had people to trade with again!) and then we went to my friend Maggie’s house, ate a bunch of pie, watched Pokemon the abridged series for one or two episodes, and played the original Pokemon monopoly before going back to our own houses to begin playing our new games. It’s one of my best memories of high school. SoulSilver was a nice trip down memory lane, and I loved it a lot because it was a remake of my favorite game and for the first time since Yellow, your Pokemon could follow behind you! But honestly? If my memory serves it was nothing special.

For Gen 5 I was in college and had new friends who played Pokemon. We made our way to the Prudential Center, which still had a Gamestop when Pokemon Black and White came out. I was in casual Ash Ketchum cosplay (No binder or wig, just the hat and gloves and Ash’s shirts and jeans. My hair was in a ponytail pulled through the back of the cap. I think I might have carried my Pokedex in my pocket too. RIP to that Pokedex...I may buy another one someday because it was my favorite prop.) We all bought either Black, White, or both and went to California Pizza Kitchen for lunch. I remember something about one of my friend’s being another’s “dipping sauce bitch” and there is definitely a picture of it on Facebook.

With regards to the actual game, and to Black 2 when that came out, I LOVED Team Plasma, even though I can never remember they are called Team Plasma, and N...though I sort of wish that the plot was related to an actual team who felt that Pokemon fighting was wrong (like N did for most of the game) and not that sort of evil puppetry...but I did also like the plot as it was. I also remember really liking some of the stuff they did with the graphics at the time. I don’t remember anything at all about any of the gym leaders or other characters. I also don’t remember the point of Black Kyurem and White Kyurem. I always think I remember less of Black/White than I do. So that was actually a generation I liked...though unless I think about what happened in it, my instinct is that it’s forgettable.

Pokemon X and Y are similar - it is a generation I definitely liked but my instinct is that it was forgettable. Yet again, I remember nothing about the gym leaders or the characters except Team Flare Red Hair Guy and Professor Friendo who totally trusted Team Flare Red Hair Guy and was like, “Haha - you joker, you’re hilarious” when Team Flare Red Hair Guy said “I’m going to destroy the entire fucking world.” I also remember going WAY TOO FAST on roller skates, being excited that you could finally customize your trainer, the fact that it was PokeFrance, and that you could give your Furfrou a haircut. I also remember the “It’s been 3000 years” thing that turned into a meme. Again, I loved this generation.

I didn’t get White, White 2 or Y for similar reasons that I never got Gold, Ruby, or Diamond - they were the Other Game, and I didn’t feel, plot-wise, the need to get essentially the same game save minor differences twice for completion’s sake.

ORAS is my absolute favorite game in the main series so far. It’s a remake of what I think is the best generation without looking through nostalgia goggles, the graphics are the best up to this point, it’s fun to revisit the whole Team Aqua - Team Magma thing that was so different from the other one-team-taking-over-the-world thing the other games had, as well as revisiting some fun features like Dive that never really came up again (I liked Dive...I don’t know if anyone else did lol). It brought back contests, which I always thought were a lot of fun, and SECRET BASES! But then...but then! The Delta Episode. The Delta Episode was STUNNING and began to bring a coherency to the entire Pokemon franchise that really hadn’t been there before. And my heart absolutely SOARED. Brilliant.

(I didn’t get Omega Ruby for, again, the same reasons as the other “Other Games”)

Then came Sun and Moon. I LOVED Sun! It had beautiful graphics, they were trying out new things (even if I didn’t think the trials really worked out gameplay wise, I was glad they tried!) The characters were amazing! I loved Hau and Lillie. Gladion was my precious emo child oh my goodness. Lusamine is amazingly crazy. Team Skull was a brilliant Team-Rocket-Wannabe made of millenials who actually just wanted a place to fit in. The designs of all the characters were incredible. I loved the idea of Alolan forms and divergent Pokemon evolution. The only thing was that there are now so many Pokemon I can’t even recognize them all. Through X and Y, even if I can’t name all the Pokemon, I can recognize them all if you show my a picture. That is...not true of all the ones in Sun and Moon. I also never really understood why they differentiated Ultra Beasts by calling them “Ultra Beasts” instead of just like...Pokemon from other dimensions? Because wasn’t, technically, Giratina also from another dimension? But that leads me to the fact that I adored that the alternate dimensions bit from the Delta Episode was further expanded on. Just <3 <3 <3.

I never played Moon (or, I suppose, Ultra Moon), again, as the “Other Game” reason...but the only reason I never played Ultra Sun was...I didn’t have the money to buy it. I’m a Real Adult now...but I’m also a Real Adult with a severe problem handling money appropriately and a mental illness that keeps me from holding down a job that allows me to actually buy little things like video games...it’s easier to justify spending money I don’t have on things like clothes or going out to eat...or even little things like a keychain because, hey, I need clothes and food, and that keychain is only $6...and a new video game is AT LEAST $60...and $60 is a lot. Basically....I’m bad at money and don’t have any to spend anyway.

That’s why I’m saving up for SwSh...I think I’ll probably get Sword because that’s what my gut is telling me. I hope that, if my sister (who is finally back into Pokemon!!!) gets one, she’ll get Shield. Though if she really wants Sword, I am probably going to get Shield just so we have opposite games again. Unlike Pearl and Diamond, where my gut told me to get Diamond but I got Pearl...my gut feeling for Sword versus Shield isn’t as strong as that. It’s a preference, not a deep sort of...something.

In every other generation, I had my head and my gut, which were usually aligned, telling me which version to get. (Aligned: Silver, Sapphire, FireRed, SoulSilver, Black, Black 2, X, Omega Sapphire. Unaligned: Diamond (gut) vs Pearl (head); Sun (gut) vs Moon (head). Pearl purchased, head over gut, Game disliked. Sun purchased, gut over head, Game liked.) I dunno if it means anything, but it’s been a pattern. For SwSh, my head and guy are aligned again, but they’re saying “I’d prefer Sword, but Shield is good too.” So I don’t know how to take that.

At the end of the day, and the end of this long analysis of the machinations of my mind with regards to Pokemon, I only have two things to say: (1) Pokemon is good and I love it and (2) I really want a Pokemon Coliseum/XD: Gale of Darkness reboot.