#more of a personal gripe when it comes to pokedex entries

[bleedingmyway-blog]

am i a reluctant pokemon fan ?

so far, both of the posts i've made here touch the subjects of pokemon/nintendo. it would be sort of stupid to make the third post ever say "i actually hate pokemon". so instead, i'll borrow the words a youtuber used to describe his relationship with kingdom hearts and call myself a "reluctant pokefan". why reluctant, and not ex you ask ?

for the simple fact that i still massively enjoy past episodes. in my life, there has not been a year where i haven't played an older pokemon game on a mobile emulator or dusted off the old 3ds to play some 4th/5th gen pokemon. while i've grown bored of a number of games that i have played too much during a period of time (dark souls 1 comes to mind), pokemon is really the only franchise i go back to; serving both purposes of being somewhat of a comfort game and genuine entertainment.

my latest emerald run, i had to grind like a mad dog to get my hands on a feebas

the reason i mention "genuine entertainment" like an android awkwardly trying to describe human feelings is because i know a lot of pokemon fans outgrew the franchise after discovering more complicated rpg/mon sagas like shin megami tensei, romancing saga, digimon and thus no longer draw an actual feeling of satisfaction and entertainment from the games. but to me, despite playing more rpgs over the years, i've never really stopped having fun playing the games. i will fully admit nostalgia plays into it, but it is definitely not enough to make me sink 40-50 hours into a given pokemon game (that i've most likely already played) every 6 months. the older games, while not being necessarily complicated gameplay wise (i remind myself sometimes that for the longest time the game was aimed at children) all have their own brand of uniqueness, which in my opinion, stretches further than gimmicks each game has. atmosphere, characters, the general artistic direction for the pokemons and the folklore for each generation makes each game worth playing for me. regardless of whether you think the battle system has not evolved at all in more than 20 years, that there the dressing aspect of pokemon has not gained any depth whatsoever, that the lore sometimes fails to stick together, that the game retain too much of their linear modus operandi over each opus, the pokemon experience offered by the older games couldn't be find anywhere else. all these examples of critics i quoted happen to be a few of the gripes i have against the entire franchise, which have amplified over the years.

Hence, my being a reluctant fan.

while what you've read so far has been almost like a letter to a long lost lover, what you're going to read is an aveu of hatred and disgust towards the direction taken by the games after the 7th generation (i personally judge pokemon sun/moon to be the last good games). don't expect an objective argumentary about why it's bad, cold hard facts or post ironic memes : i simply am going to express my hate for the mediocrity game freak subjects itself to.

i am not going to go into details about how vomit inducing the textures look (hint : i think it looks like actual gameplay from one of those crappy chinese mmorpgs that you see advertised on shady torrenting websites). how, in 2020, pokemon makes its first mainline entry onto a TV system which such godawful graphics, lackluster characters that somehow look inferior to the avatars from a prior mobile game (pokemon go) is beyond me.

lacking 3d animations, battles still load up in an enclosed area where the trainer is nowhere to be seen, pokemons remain static, simple looped animations with not even a god damn idle animation, something that mid 90s point n click games had for chrissake. it is unbelievable game freak went on about the pokedex not including enough pokemons as to concentrate on the ones they're going to be using when truthfully, you couldn't put less work into what's already in the game if you wanted. "it could be worse" yeah, sure, if they didn't just lazily re-use the animations from the 3ds

and you may argue that this had always been the case, to which i'll answer that the only example of gf being this lazy was the shameless copy/paste of the post-league house of battles (whatever its name was) in ORAS; considering the original one in XY was already incredibly lackluster. i actually suspect gamefreak started getting real lazy around that time the way, providing players with the bare bones minimum of pokemon games : expect that's the thing, it's no more interesting than a plain bowl of white rice with nothing on it. pokemon, at its base form, is rpg so behind and archaic that it could be called backwards. features that have existed for 2 decades in mainstream jrpgs such as wild life encounters and beast riding are seen as good additions, while the series was conditionned to smaller machines with weak technical capabilities, the limitations were excusable, but i refuse to ever pay for the undercooked pieces of garbage that nintendo has somehow been able to churn out at a faster rythm than back when the games were made for smaller formats; and on top of that, pouring a thick greasy nasty sauce of dlcs on top.

legendaries that no longer have any connection to existing folklore/mythical symbolism, flagship legendary pokemons being just recolors of each other. jesus christ, scarlet and violet were centered around the gimmick of motorcycle dragons being ridable and somehow nintendo manages to flip the middle finger by making said pokemons CRAWL on top of being extremely buggy

let us ignore, once again, the awful graphics (final fantasy XII on ps2 somehow looked better in its pixelated glory)

the problem is not the choice of gimmicks or pokemons whatsoever, that's up do debate, we've had for each ds game a gimmick to act as a placeholder of the lower screen, but there's no soul left, and as to define this vague concept; not spontaneity from the devs, no extra-work to make the player smile as he thinks "they didn't have to do this but i like it", like getting something on the house from a burger joint you already love. no, you can truly feel that even though nintendo has always been multi billion dollar company, they now decide to make money on unfinished games, capitalizing on a new demographic of older players who won't mind spending 50, 60 bucks on the lastest pokemon game no matter how shamefully mediocre it is.

i think i'll stop here as i would have to go deeper into detail, but frankly, i feel like i could go on forever, with more structure, and yet, it feels childish because this is ultimately the result of disappointment at the downhill slope a loved franchise that occupied a big role when i was younger is taking.

thanks for reading once again, and do tell if you've any objections or remark concerning something i said

[pokemonprompts]

I'm tired of Dark-type Pokémon typically being reserved for villain and criminal trainers, like the grunts for nearly all of the villainous teams, delinquents, thugs, and gang members. I feel like Piers was really a step in the right direction for Dark-type specialists, with that sorely needed punk-with-a-heart-of-gold aesthetic. I especially love how the fandom has pretty much collectively decided that he's a disaster artist, who stays up until 6am on the regular writing songs. It's a big mood for me, first of all, and it also kinda softens that edge he has as an imposing, serious gym leader.

That being said, I really do wanna see a Dark or Ghost specialist who acknowledges the stigma around their types being considered "evil" and makes an effort to portray them in a more positive light. Disproving rumours that bring harm to these Pokémon, like how Absol was heralded as a disaster Pokémon by previous generations and hunted to endangerment over a misunderstanding.

I have a Pokémon AU for some OCs from my original story, see. Two of them are twin gym leaders, kinda like Bea and Allister, but they run the same gym and fill in for one another on occasion, usually depending on which one is a better match for their challenger (or when one of them sleeps in, which happens more than they'd like to admit). They specialize in Ghost and Dark types, and they run a shelter for all sorts of Dark and Ghost Pokémon that were abused or disowned due to superstitious trainers. They also run a show kind of like Jackass in their off-time, where they disprove rumours about these Pokémon being evil or stealing souls or whatever; for example, Aeris once laid her hand flat on a Cursola's ghastly membrane to prove that it wouldn't actually turn people into stone. She couldn't move her arm for an hour after, but it did wear off! And that's what counts.

[heyhowyadoingpally]

it’s been so fuckin long since our first installment of this series. at the rate we’re going i’ll get through the first ten pokemon by the time another game comes out. and that means more pokemon to cover. ew, i know.

since i went over the first starter evolution previously, time to go ahead and plow through the next starter like a combine harvester on the fields during a calm and early sunday morning.

#004 - Mega: Charmander Evolution

#004 - Charmander

the starters are supposed to all be, like, the basic elements, right? bulbasaur is supposed to be grass/earth, squirtle is water, and charmander here is fire. i gotta admit, i like the name. charmander’s name is obviously a combo of “char” and “salamander”. it just works. i mean, i think it does? i might be fuckin wrong but salamanders were once associated with fire in some culture’s mythology? greek? roman? native american? i don’t remember. but it’s somewhere.

according to the pokedex entry on this lil guy, if the burning flame on his tail gets snuffed, he’s dead. like, straight-up dead. and yet you see people pit their wimpy charmanders up against hulkin water-type monsters whose abilities cause tsunamis capable of wiping out an entire nation. charmander is a goddamn resilient little fucker.

i like his overall design - simplistic, yet iconic. he doesn’t have too much going on, which makes sense since he’s the first stage of a starter evolution. he’s like a lil baby. except this baby knows how to fucking suplex you into mount doom, all the while pissing all over the eye of sauron because he can.

i might have exaggerated on that one. maybe he could spit on sauron, but his piss stream wouldn’t reach that far.

#005 - Charmeleon

alright, alright. i’ll just go out and say it: charmeleon looks like that older brother who says he’ll do the dishes and then immediately goes out with his buddies.

like, i appreciate that they’re still going for subtlety with his design, but it doesn’t quite reflect the name. don’t get me wrong - the parasolophoid crest-thing going on is prett similar to some real-world chameleons, but maybe just make his tail slightly curl up like a chameleon’s? idk. if you’re gonna name it after a reptile who lives in the trees and eats bugs, at least show it in the design.

and, another thing i just want to get out there: we all know what he turns into, and how that fucker has wings. but the you’d thinkt hat maybe charmeleon here would have maybe like lil bumps on his back where wings are forming, or perhaps just small weak lil flippyflaps? it just seems weird that the final stage of this evolution has wings yet the middle and first stages lack such appendages.

i don’t want to say i hate it, tho; the fact that his skin is a lot darker and his “cute” features aren’t as prevalent are a nice touch. i think i said this enough, but i love subtlety and realism. when it shines, it shines good, especially here. the previously-stated features i like make charmeleon seem like an adolescent of his species. i don’t know how many times i can say i love when that happens without becoming a redundant recluse.

i just wanted to throw alliteration at the end. so sue me.

#006 - Charizard

the final stage in the charmander evolutionary line (much like in bulbasaur’s) is badass.

even the name (which doesn’t seem to really fit his appearance, either) reeks of badassery. charizard. just saying it out loud makes you feel the adrenaline enter your bloodstream and cause the greatest orgasm known to mankind. HNNNNNNGH. YEEAHH. THAT’S RIGHT FUCKERS. I JUST CREAMED IN MY FUCKING PANTS.

this motherfucker is your standard dragon, but it’s a fuckin great dragon. i mean, it’s kind of a given that the first fire starter in the games would be a dragon, but it looks so fucking good. it’s a shame that it doesn’t reflect much of the “lizard” qualities in its name. idk. give him a big ol long licky tongue or smth. it’s a shame it has such a badass name yet the badass design doesn’t reflect it.

badass. blah blah blah. i’m very tired.

and, just so nobody blabbers to me about it, yes, i’m aware that charizard isn’t a dragon-type. i can understand why this didn’t happen, honestly. they probably didn’t know if the first two games would even sell as much so they didn’t want want to make a dragon type just for one pokemon. or something.

charizard’s mega evolutions differ from ivysaur’s in that instead of having just one evolution for both games that get released, charizard has fuckin two, one for each game.

Mega Charizard (Pokemon X)

ugh. i mean, it looks like a mega evolution, but it just seems a little bit on the “”””edgy”””” side for my dumb baby tastes. just a little.

however, i will say that giving him a darker color scheme does a better job at keeping the “char” part in his name. since, y’know, when things char, they typically turn black.

the fire being blue is a nice touch, too. it implies that he’s one hot momma older, and therefore has hotter flames. maybe if a charizard turns into this at its last years of life and it blows up bc of too much heat? think of when godzilla went through a meltdown, but not as large and not as cool-looking.

i just hope that the mega from pokemon y looks almost as interesting as this fella. maybe even better. but i doubt it since pokemon likes to pander towards the edgy fanbase it h-

Mega Charizard (Pokemon Y)

I TAKE BACK WHAT I SAID THIS IS NOT EDGY, THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF EDGY. WE HAVE BEEN BLESSED.

sorry. had a stroke for a second.

this is just-.....he’s....

he’s fuckin fantastic.

if there was an evolutionary line after charizard, i’d sure as hell want this fucker to be next. he looks like an elder charizard. like, the leader of some sort of charizard group. the three crests make so much sense to me. like, charmander had no crest, charmeleon had one, and then charizard has two.

the wings???? they look slightly damaged, as if years of fights and flights have wore down the edges. this fucker has seen shit, and he annihilated the PISS out of that shit,

the tail??? a bigger flame, naturally. the older it gets, the bigger the flame? i don’t know. i’m a little peeved that they didn’t make his flame blue as well for the sake of making him seem also powerful, but i can understand the aesthetic choice.

what i would have personally liked to see is the two megas switch color schemes. i personally think it would have worked a lot better in their favors.

in fact, hold on. i’m gonna see what this would have looked like.

(source)

this looks a lot better than i thought it would have. fuck. @nintendo reboot ur games just for the sole purpose of this factor. i don’t care if i have to wait 10 years for garbodor to pop up in another game. this is a fuckin masterpiece.

RATING:

4.5/5 venonats. where they shine, they shine like a goddamn gold nugget. and that’s pretty much everywhere. mostly.

my only gripes are that they could have done a somewhat better job making the pokemon reflect their names.

be sure to tune in....whenever....when i review the squirtle evolution line.

PREVIOUS POKEFART: Bulbasaur Line

NEXT POKEFART: Squirtle Line

[crystalelemental]

It’s been a while, but I think I’ve finally decided roughly where Gen 7 is going to fall for me in terms of the general Pokemon Game Rankings.  There’s still a chance for Ultra Sun/Moon or hypothetical remakes to chance this, but I’m gonna put it below Gen 5 and 4, but above Gen 2, leading to:

Gen 5 Gen 4 Gen 7 Gen 2 Gen 3 Gen 1 Gen 6

Explanations for Gen 7′s ranking below.

I’ll start positive.  Gen 7′s introduction of the Ultra Beasts is probably my favorite thing the series has ever done.  These weird alien horrors are fantastic, and I love them so very much.  Especially Nihilego, obviously, but they are all fantastic and I wish them the best.

The story and characters are also quite strong.  Story especially.  The emphasis on Lillie’s family was divine, and allowed for some great development for Lillie, Gladion, and to some extent Lusamine through the unraveling of her backstory.  I’m still a little salty about Mohn actually being alive and rendering a lot of this almost trivial, but oh well.

I’m a big fan of the island setup.  I think the different regions within the islands are cool, and the concept of their respective guardians and the different challenges in the games makes it fairly distinct from other entries.

Alolan Variants, while also going to be listed as a negative aspect later, are a cool idea.  I kinda like the concept of offering variants based on region, and the fandom has been offering those kinds of variations for ages now, so it’s cool to see a few show up in-game.

Changes to general Pokemon in the form of updates to moves or increases in base stats were also divine.  The changes this time were actually significant, with some Pokemon gaining like a cumulative total of 40 base points.  Compared to last gen’s pathetic attempt at altering stat totals by offering a mere 10 points, this actually felt significant, and it’s nice to know they’re trying some things to improve the status of certain Pokemon.  Also let’s not forget that EXP Share with the Gen 5 experience gain mechanics are a brilliant solution to the Gen 6 problem of over-leveling. 

Lastly, some of the mechanics changes were solid.  Most notably, no more HMs.  It’s all done through calling different Pokemon to serve as the HMs.  This is quite possibly the best mechanical change in the entire series, rivaled only by the changes to moves like Wrap and Rage from Gen 1 to Gen 2.

As for the negative aspects, let’s start with the most personal gripe: the Pokemon.  While there are some excellent stand-outs, I feel comfortable saying that this generation had the most disappointing batch for me thus far.  In some cases, it’s the stat allocations.  Pokemon like Tsareena and Lurantis should’ve been incredible, and the allocations of their stats pretty much damns them to removal from standard use.  For others, it’s a movepool that’s lacking needed tools, that better be fixed when move tutors arrive.  For some, like my dead Pikipek, it’s an evolution line that is neither required nor welcome.  I would’ve preferred to just keep a basic woodpecker.  I love woodpeckers.  But now the only woodpecker in the game, which is cute and has a great ability, evolves into some angry toucan thing whose speed tier is way too low to make any sort of use of Skill Link.  Even Pokemon that turned out well, like Tapu Lele, have been incredibly disappointing to me, just based on stat allocation and movepool.  Lele’s description talks about out-lasting opponents with status and the energy in its shell, yet it has no means of natural recovery and only the most basic of status options.  It’s a super strong offensive unit, but that’s not what was advertised, and frankly, not what I wanted.

Speaking of not what I wanted, Alolan Variants.  I feel like these were a neat idea, but kind of damning.  The Alolan Variant is either way better than the default version, and thus gives the player no reason to ever use the default version, or isn’t any better or even worse and thus served no purpose.  It’s the curse of competitive, I suppose; one of the two was definitely going to be worse than the other.  But it’s frustrating to know how few Alolan Variants actually...did anything for the Pokemon?  Not like megas did.  Speaking of...

The biggest negative of all: Z-moves.  I don’t like them.  They’re interesting, and I’ll pull this criticism back the instant we get back to having real game-changers like mega evolution.  A universal buff changes nothing for anyone.  Your bullshit mentality of “We wanted something to help all Pokemon!” fell flat on its ass because all you did was give Garchomp and Lando-T more tools to use.  Nothing changes.  Nothing is beneficial from this.  Just go back to making megas before you make a Gen 4 remake we’re all going to regret.

Also what do you mean Super Training only works with level 100s?  The solution to over-leveling was brilliant, but now you make it a massive pain in the ass to grind up to 100, then lock the IV improvements behind that progression wall?  Pokemon, when are you going to get rid of this arbitrary shit?  Just let people obtain items for dramatically fewer BP, re-introduce Super Training to make EVs easier, and remove the level requirement for IVs since it’s hard enough to just get bottlecaps.  Just make it easier to construct competitive teams in general.  There’s a reason so many people cheat in Pokemon, and it’s because we don’t have time for this shit.

Related: why are so many of the new Pokemon so hard to get?  So many exist only as like 1% or 5% encounter rates, while the common stuff is all from previous generations.  It makes it really hard to build a team of all new stuff when your Pokedex is small, and half the new things are absurdly rare, you know.

On a less competitive, more game-oriented note, I’d like to offer linearity as the first complaint.  You have all these islands that have massive, interconnected routes...and come up with the most asinine reasons we can’t just explore.  “Sorry, my Stoutland is sniffing for treasure and is REALLY INSISTENT that it finish before anyone crosses.”  Fuck off.  Let me go that way.  Honestly, we have a solution.  Pokemon Origins offered it; just let the trial captains get stronger depending on how many of them you’ve beaten.  If you do Water first, it’s the lowest level; if you do Water last, it’s the highest.  There was such great potential here for a more open experience and they wasted all of it by constantly railroading you along a specific path.  I might be more willing to go with it if the world were more of a straight line like in Unova, where there aren’t many opportunities to deviate from “go forward,” but the way islands are designed, it becomes super transparent how hard they’re forcing you to stay in line.

Another is trials, and how they impact the captains.  While an interesting concept, I feel that gym leaders are more effective as characters.  Trial captains are largely irrelevant for their trials, and you never get a sense for how they are in battle or what their tactics are.  You can battle them, but odds are you didn’t, because the conditions to battle them are so obscure.  I only ever battled Lana, and it was post-League.  Her team was all level 30.  That’s unacceptable.  If I get to battle them, at least have it be a situation where they’re a challenge.  I don’t dislike the concept of the trials, and think they’re definitely neat.  But I also feel like substantial battles with the captains should happen at some point as well.  Worse, because it’s only one real Pokemon in the form of the Totem, it’s hard to really...appreciate them when you have any form of type advantage.  Plenty of them are easily removed in one turn with a strong enough super-effective attack.  While the set-up for trials can be interesting, they’re only interesting if you get to see them.

Which brings me to the last one...the League.  Trials are interesting.  They’re a way to introduce a puzzle of some kind before a major battle against a single, super-strong Totem Pokemon.  I don’t dislike the idea.  I feel that Gym Leaders are more engaging characters most of the time, but it’s a fun variation for a region that’s meant to be distinct.  But then you learn about the League.  And the League opens up.  And suddenly you realize...oh god.  There were seven trials, with Mina being an eighth who just doesn’t do her job.  The same number of trials as there would be gyms.  And oh god, the grand trial was basically just this anyway.  And suddenly the cool variation crumbles apart as you realize nothing was all that distinct after all, they just gave up trying to hide it at the very end and just made a Pokemon League.  I honestly think that, if it had just stayed as the Grand Trial, I would’ve been happier.  But this breaks that illusion so hard.  I don’t like.

Oh, and they should’ve let me fight Mother Beast.  Cowards.