#pokemon its demo

[b4kuch1n]

thank you for coming to the show

but now it's curtain call

and senses will be out the window in a minute

[lucky--owl]

also I'm playing a joke rom hack that's im like 99.9% sure was made by a trans woman and it has some of the funniest fucking moments

[gingergari]

good morning ladies, time to pick some men

self indulgent customization under the cut

[lord-pigeon]

Man I wish Pokemon actually continued making side series games like Ranger or Mystery Dungeon to appeal to their older audience again instead of trying to half-ass tread the middle ground and appeal to only the kids or hardline fans

They have more money than god, they can afford it, but they don't want to. The closest we got was Arceus and that was literally just a tech demo for Scarlet/Violet

[skeletalheartattack]

whats the game for the "describe your favorite game as poorly as possible" post?

paper mario the thousand year door!

[clownkiwi]

haaai finally tried out beastieball!!! (greg lobanov's newest game, the wandersong & chicory dev)

its really fun and promising, i cant wait til the full things out :3

[muttever]

hmm mayhaps im beginning to think of saving towards a steam deck (for games that i dont mod)

i love the concept of handheld gaming but im not a fan of nintendo in general (and theyre pretty much the only name in the game) and i feel like this would get me to actually play some games ive bought but cant be assed to play on my laptop properly... hmmmmm...

[adobe-outdesign]

Lickitung line review

Lickitung is fairly forgotten about in the grand scheme of things, but I do like it quite a bit. The tongue thing is super in-your-face obvious and is a very unique theme (it also might be vaguely based off of an akaname yokai).

But what makes it work for me isn't just that it's a weird abstract creature with a tongue—it's that it's a very organic, cool-looking creature with a tongue. I love how its very vaguely salamander-esq in the face but is also bipedal, with a huge tail that mimics the tongue. It feels like something that could exist, and I always enjoy those kind of designs.

The stomach markings are also pretty interesting; it's an usual pattern that I don't think any other Pokemon sports, and they add a lot of shape to the body. Color-wise, pink is an obvious choice, and the cream works well to accent it. I do wish the pink was a bit deeper or more saturated as it feels a bit washed-out, but otherwise, this is a solid weird tongue thing.

Lickitung also had a beta evo design in the Spaceworld Demo. I like the rolled tongue, mustache, and markings... but the way it's some kind of Indian snake charmer(??) feels uncomfortable, and the body shape needed to change more.

Speaking of evos, Lickilicky is also as a weird tongue thing, but unfortunately it's not particularly well designed. My favorite thing about Lickitung is, as I just said, that it feels like an actual animal—but Lickilicky is anything but. The completely circular body, perfectly straight tongue, and stubby legs make it feel more like a toy.

But my other issue with it is that it doesn't really feel like a progression of Lickitung. Lickitung's thing is, surprise, the tongue, so you'd expect the tongue to be longer or more prominent in the design. Instead, it's shorter. Yes, it can presumably extend to be longer, but why would you de-emphasize the most important part of the design?

Similarly, the markings are reduced down, making them once again feel like a regression instead of a progression. They at least attempted to add something with the markings under the chin being more bib-like, but that's not enough to make the entire design work. Also, the wi-fi markings don't add much at this point and they would've worked at least a bit better in white.

You want to know an easy fix for this problem? Make Lickilicky the pre-evo. It feels weird to imagine Lickitung evolving into Lickilicky, but a Lickitung surrounded by little baby Lickilicky? Adorable! It would also make sense with things like the bib and the little curl of "hair" at the top.

If there's one thing I can give Lickilicky, it's that it at least has better colors than Lickitung. That, and the :P expression is kind of fun. Otherwise, though, I don't think this one works much at all.

(I also have to give a quick shoutout to @inprogresspokemon's Lickitung evo. This, to me, is a much better direction at all—it emphasizes and doubles down on the tongue paralysis thing and it still has a very organic body shape.)

Anyway, overall, Lickitung has a strong theme and a nice abstract design that conveys said theme well, but Lickilicky feels like a step backwards and would've been much better as a pre-evo. Maybe consider putting an everstone on this one.

[obscure-pokemon-facts]

im submitting this fact bc ive never seen anyone bring it up anywhere: sneasels beta design managed to hold on for a really long time before it was eventually changed. in fact, it lasted for so long that its palette managed to stay into the final games before finally getting changed in crystal- this is why sneasel has a vastly different palette in gs compared to the rest of the series

Hi! Fact #296. showcases the pallet used for Gold and Silver's final release and the difference between those and Crystal's.

You're right, Sneasel's beta design was still in it even up to the 1999 Space World demo (around 3 months before GS's release).

Actually a fair few Gen II Pokémon in the 1999 demo use beta designs, look at Wobbufett and Larvitar's lmao

[onestepbackwards]

I've been following the Unity situation and its so fucking insane like holy shit. We have everything! - Absurd fees for devs! That may or may not be retroactive and illegal, but we won't say until you cause a stink about it! (We totally aren't shh we wouldn't break the law. Totally :) ) - Getting rid of one of their levels of subscriptions during all of this, The 'Plus Plan', and allegedly putting you on the more expensive 'Pro' subscription if you auto renew! - Insider trading! Selling their stocks not even a week before they released this new change in their company! x x They've since backpedaled from what their original plan was. Originally, they told everyone that every Install, reinstall, dlc, demo, and pirated copy would now cost a fee (with few exceptions, such as charity games and bundles) It's not hard to see how this could tank an indie company with ease. Mad at a dev/company? Just mass install/uninstall. Now they are apparently saying that 'nonono! We only meant the original install :)' Which also opens the door as to how they are tracking installs. They so far have seemed to be avoiding as to how on earth they are going to do that without breaching privacy on a computer. Especially when it could just be easier to make a fee based on purchases, but no. x

So you know, don't worry guys, they have their own 'proprietary data model.' But so far (As i type this, or am aware of) have not given details about how that model works. When asked about stuff such as Xbox Gamepass, Unity mentioned it would be Microsoft paying for the fees. As of now, I have no idea if Microsoft was even told this, and I doubt they are going to agree to it either out of nowhere. x Another fun thing, is if you change your Unity plan, you are added to the revenue threshold immediately. Interesting that this is after they sneakily got rid of their Plus plan, which a lot of devs seemed to use.

And interesting enough, they seem to contradict themselves from their QnA and their official twitter post regarding Demo's and Early Access, or at least tried to be sneaky about the wording?? x x

They won't charge for demos or early access, until they do, apparently. Or if the demo has data that can be transferred to the main game, anyway. Unity also claimed this would only affect 10% of its users. Which is funny when you look at all the Indie devs and studios who are coming out on twitter saying that this actually directly hurts them. Not to mention all the people that have spent years learning this engine, for themselves, or so they can apply to companies using it. And now all of that was just spat on by Unity themselves. There's also the games that have been out and are built on this engine, and can't just be tossed and rebuilt. Such as Among us, Genshin Impact, Pokemon Go and the Diamond/Pearl remakes. Overall, it's a huge mess. Unity majorly screwed up. I'd recommend looking into what games you like, and if they run on Unity. If you don't have them yet, you may want to purchase them so they are in your steam library, or whatever console you play on. With the uncertainty of all of this, I wouldn't be surprised if some companies delist their games on steam. If you buy from them now, you'll still be able to support the devs before Unity implements this new fee plan. Plus, since you paid for them, they will still be on your console/in your steam library. Please stay safe ya'll, and support your local game devs during this storm. They need it.

[subwaytostardew]

▽ Subway to Stardew - Adoptable Joltik ⚡️

This would play after Emmet's 8 heart event and getting Joltik up to 8 hearts as well.

I released a separate mod specifically for adopting Joltik, so you only need to get them up to 8 hearts to adopt them! You can do it right now!

Adoptable Joltik Mod Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/21002

And of course... Commentary under the read-more.

Joltik's adoption event sat in the drafts for quite a while. It took me whole a day to implement and I didn't let myself sleep until I finished everything. (It's 1 PM now...)

The event ended up wildly different because of how extra custom pets are implemented. You would think that they would be added in the same way as you get your cat/dog that you select during character creation. No. You have to buy a license. Only Marnie is authorized to sell them.

Here's the original script for Joltik's adoption event:

[Joltik Adoption Event]

Emmet: @! Joltik likes you verrrrry much. They want to stay with you. I'm letting you adopt them. Yup. I filled out all the paperwork. The Joltiks are legally documented now. 

I never gave ours a name... Galvantula wouldn't let me. She is verrrry picky about it. But that's okay. Joltik is yours. You should name them. She came along for approval. So. What name should I put on the adoption form?

[Name input box like Marnie's adoption thing...]

[Galvantula pauses for a moment to think and then offhandedly agrees.]

Emmet: Galvantula didn't shock me for that. That name is okay. Yup. I will file that with the Ferngill Republic. Don't worry about it. Make sure you take verrrry good care of our little Joltik!

[Joltik jumps and heart emotes]

◇──◆──◇──◆

The whole naming portion was a source of much more frustration than it should have been. In events, the name input box is brought up by the "catQuestion" command (which applies to dogs chosen at the start, too...

If you refuse, then Marnie also shows up no matter what you do. Farmhouse positions are also tricky and made even harder to find reference for after 1.6 added the farmhouse being moveable. Joltik kept spawning where Emmet was supposed to be so I had to use a move command just to get them to spawn one tile to the side. Galvantula was fine. I didn't get to updating her vanilla portraits yet so she's staying quiet.

The catQuestion command also only adds the pet you pick during character creation. There's no fields to target the usage. You have to buy a license. It's the only way to get another pet. I didn't want Joltik to replace a cat either since in-story you would have to earn the trust of both Emmet and Galvantula... There's no way you can do that by the first 25 days of spring. It's immersion breaking and you lose a cat.

I did find the license aspect funny though. It was oddly fitting for the mod's lore of Pokemon being pretty much banned from the region. Emmet is a threat to Stardew Valley's ecosystem. Not the best guy for the task of combating anti-Pokemon xenophobia.

Pet sizes are apparently hardcoded so I had to make a new spritesheet for Joltik as if they even need a 32 x 32 pixel area per frame. I did end up making new sprites for them while I was at it. I tried to base it off of the cat's behaviors so I have less animation fields to edit (I was tired). The cat loafs a lot. Trying to convey that in a tiny spider posed quite the challenge.

After everything was done, I figured that the whole adoption portion of the mod could easilly be taken apart to be its own mod as a demo of sorts for the expansion. So I went and made a content pack to post.

Bringing up your starter pet's friendship level takes quite some time, so it would be awkward if I let the event play with no preconditions. Because of that, I ended up including Joltik as an NPC and locking their adoption behind their heart level.

We actually only had two lines per day of the week (not including season) for daily dialogue. That shot up to six lines per day of the week for a full 0-2-4-6-8-10 in spring because I was determined to publish a mod. (I've been modding for nearly a year nonstop and I don't have anything playable... humiliating...)

Anyways! I hope you're all having fun with 1.6! It certainly brought new challenges and opportunities to the modding scene!

▷ Station Steward Thylak

[sabrerine911]

Felt like sketching something between commissions since I was testing the Tekken 8 demo today

Jin, Kazuya, Nina n Paul

(Might color them later on)

Opinions:

As a Nina main I was very happy that I could play as her, and she plays really good ^^

As a King main I was very sad cause he wasnt an option (I cri, I want my boi!)

Story demo was interesting(looking forward to see how the Mishimas will YET AGAIN just break everything, hopefully we actually get other characters more developed outside of them this time around)

Arcade thing was...interesting...the funko pop people were unsettling and Im not a huge fan of the Pokemon vibes its giving (feels immersion breaking in a way, Like I want to be immersed in the tekken world, not in a world where funkopop people play tekken XD)

Overall tho, had a fun experience, might be in the minority but I hope that they give us more offline options and a lot of customization this time around, saying this as a casual button masher that enjoyed all the games a lot (except 7 since it mostly focused on online)

[deepdreamnights]

The Age Old Debate: Fire Good, or Fire Bad?

This was originally going to be part of this thread, but the points were distinct enough and my thoughts rambly enough that I split it into two posts.

From the recent PalWorld thread:

We gotta handle that last tag in two parts.

Part 1 "the devs admitted to using AI art to make the pals"

First off, that isn't true near as I can tell. I can't find anything of the PalWorld Devs admitting they used AI for PalWorld designs. Palworld had demo footage with Pals in it 2 years ago on June 6 with their announcement trailer, which means they would have had to have started dev much earlier than that.

This is what AI art from June of 2022 looked like:

On the left, Hieronymus Bosch's Pokemon, on the right, Charmander on Gumby.

I did a much deeper breakdown of the "used AI" accusation here. It does not hold water.

Now, I could change my mind on this point if there were linked evidence to the creators of Palworld saying this. But there isn't.

Because the accusation is repeated in a tag, there's no way to include supporting information, or even to easily directly ask the accuser for it. Many people are going to see it, internalize it, and then repeat it uncritically, and that's how rumors and witchhunts start.

Because I've seen a lot of accusations about PalWorld stealing fakemon, and I'm yet to see a smoking gun. There's barely smoke.

Gonna hit the second point in that tag, but while we're on the theme of spreading misinfo:

Part 2 of the Tag: Using AI to Brainstorm is "Bad"

This is also an assertion that would require support, and I believe it to be wholly incorrect.

Plagiarism happens at publication. Not at inception, not inspiration, not even at the production level. The only measure of whether something is or is not "stolen art" is whether what comes out at the end replicates, with insufficient transformation, an existing, fixed expression. Art theft is about what comes out, not about what goes in.

For more about how this works with AI art, I suggest checking out the Electronic Frontier Foundation's statement on the issue. They're the ones looking out for your online civil rights, and I agree with their position on this.

The argument that AI art is theft because it is trained on public-facing material on the internet just doesn't fly. Those are all fixed published works subject to inspiration, study, and transformative recreation under fair use. The utilization of mechanical apparatus does not change that principle.

And fair use that requires permission isn't fair use. That's a license.

Moreover, altering the process to put infringement at inspiration/input or allowing the copyrighting of styles would be the end of art as we know it.

There's no coincidence that the main legal push against AI art on copyright grounds is backed by Adobe and Disney. Adobe is already using AI art as a pretext to lobby congress to let them copyright styles, and Disney owns enough material on its own to produce a dataset that would let them do all the AI they'd ever need to, entirely with material they "own." And they're DOING THAT.

The genie is out of the bottle, they (Disney, Adobe, Warner Bros, Universal) have it, and it can't be taken away from them. They just don't want anyone else using AI to compete with them.

Palworld didn't use AI to conceive of its critters. If it had, they'd have probably been less derivative.

(three random AI fakemon I prompted up as examples of just that)

Both traditional and AI-assisted art can plagerize or be original, its entirely based upon how the techniques are used.

Moreover, you can infringe entirely accidentally without realizing, but you can also fail at copying enough that it becomes a new protected work.

We're well into moral panic territory with AI in general, and there's more than a touch of it around Palworld, largely because people aren't suspicious enough of information that confirms their worldview.

I used the quoted set of tags as the prompt for the top of the post, all the AI images in this post are unmodified and were not extensively guided, and thus do not meet the minimal expression threshold and should be considered in the public domain.

[waywardstation]

I really enjoy what we've seen from the PMD au so far!

Not knowing too much about the games since I never had any of the games and I suck at the demo of the PMD game on switch!

But I do know that Protag is usually a human turned Pokemon with wiped memories.

Considering that you've inserted Pokemon versions of a lot of the Characters of PLA (and possibly Black and White?) I was just thinking jokingly, maybe they all are humans turned Pokemon! We just need to find the regular Pokemon in the bunch! (I know its very likely untrue but I'm really just joking here!)

Thank you so much!!

And hmm, that would be pretty interesting.

In PMD Sky, there is a big issue with time stopping and falling apart, involving the present and the wrecked future, but I’ve been considering turning it into an issue with space-time and Giratina’s distortion world instead, basically inserting PLA’s distortions into the story and making those distortions temporary ‘dungeons’ to explore and survey.

Perhaps not for every character, but it would be interesting if there were more victims to this than just Ingo (and possibly Emmet). They’re both from the future in this setting, technically. Maybe a few could be from the past as well — again, not every PLA character, but maybe some.

I’ll think on this more to see if I want to move forward with this concept or not. Thanks for the ask!!

[familiaralien]

Giant monster tamer megathread

Decided for the sake of education and my own neurodiversity to make a post including every video game series or stand alone title I know of that focuses on creature capturing competitions that isn't Pokemon.

One big exception: the game has to be a reasonably playable state. So no games that are effectively or literally lost media (like Micromon) or games that only playable state is currently a short demo (like Bestieball). With that in mind here we go:

Digimon

This one is pretty obvious. While more of a multimedia franchise it has tons of games to its IP. The one that probably would appeal most to Pokenerds is Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth and its sequel as they're turned based RPGs with a monster capture mechanic.

Monster Rancher

Another one I think a lot of folks have heard about or least millennials would remember. I haven't personally played any of these titles myself but from what I gather they're raising sims with tournament combat. For a while their availability was mostly limited to emulation but Monster Rancher 1 and 2 have been ported to modern systems like the Switch.

Yo-kai Watch

A mid 2010s franchise that had a whole lot of initial success in Japan. Its an RPG series that doesn't take itself very seriously with cute and goofy monster design based on the Japanese folklore creatures called... well yokai. Has real time combat instead of turn based and more luck based capturing mechanics than Pokemon.

Palworld

Brand new game that's only in its alpha release as of now. Its effectively a parody of Pokemon where you're stuck trying to survive in the wilderness so you must build a base and farm resources to survive. Game did have some initial controversy due to some of its designs stepping a little TOO close to being outright ripoffs of existing designs. Also you can capture and enslave humans which may not vibe with some folks.

Temtem

Basically Pokemon meets a MMO lite. The game can be played mostly as single player campaign but does unfortunately still require a constant internet connection. Battles are turned based but 2 versus 2.

Shin Megami Tensei

What could be consider the original monster tamer game. The series is aimed at a somewhat older audience and the plots tend to be more philosophical then like "gotta be the best *insert title here* ever". Focuses a lot on fusing monsters as well as trying to convince them to join you. You actually battle alongside your monsters.

Dragon Quest Monsters

Monster Capturing mechanics do exist in the mainline DQ games as well (at least since DQ5 I think?) but its these games have them as the main gameplay. Much like SMT it focuses on fusing monsters as one of the main ways to expand your library off available species.

Nexomon

Franchise that started its life as a mobile game but has since gotten ports to other systems. Its very similar to Pokemon in terms of creature designs and combat but the worldbuilding is quite different as is its tone being a lot more comedic.

Coromon

Indie game with visuals similar to Pokemon Black and White. Its story was originally kinda so-so and its ending pretty abrupt but its since gotten a free patch that smoothed that out quite a bit. Also has a sorta unique "shiny" system where alternate colors are associated with higher potential which can actually be altered once. Also has a built in randomizer and "nuzlocke" mode.

Cassette Beasts

A pretty recent indie game. Unlike all the others you don't capture or hatch monsters but rather record them to transform into them yourself. Battles are always between you and a companion which there are multiple to befriend throughout your journey (including a dog!). Has some really interesting quirks with its type chart that adds a lot of extra depth. Will soon be releasing a mutiplayer update for anyone that's into that kind of thing.

Monster Crown

A game with visual based on the Gameboy era. It has some pretty fascinating breeding mechanics and a somewhat darker tone than Pokemon. WARNING: DO NOT GET THE SWITCH PORT! For whatever reason its especially glitchy and I have genuinely gotten entire save files ruined by game breaking bugs (such as my player character getting stuck in walls or clipping out of a bounds). As far as I'm aware the PC version is not nearly as much as a mess though.

Monster Sanctuary

Monster collecting meets metroidvania. Has a really fun skill tree type move learning system that allows for quite a bit of strategy. Also the monster designs are way less Pokemon and more inspired by traditional roleplay monsters (so there's like Goblins and stuff). My only gripe with the game is how you get monsters involves getting specific scores in battle which makes getting 1 of each monster way more tedious than it needed to be.

Fossil Fighters

Franchise is maybe dead since there hasn't been a new entry in it since the 3DS but its still easy enough to these games. Anyway this series involve reviving dinosaurs (and some other ancient animals) into new lifeforms called vivosaur and using them in 3 on 3 combat. Vivosaurs are obtained with a fossil digging minigame which is kinda neat.

Spectrobes

Another franchise that's been pretty dead for a while (it last entry was on the Wii). Spectrobes has a more sci fi like setting with its monsters being aliens you revive from fossils. Combat is real time and you participate alongside a couple of your monsters. I'm btw describing only the first game because I haven't played either sequel!

Evocreo

Mobile only monster game with a style similar to Pokemon Black and White not unlike Coromon mentioned above. Has a lot of focus on split path evolution. The devs are apparently going to release a sequel soon but its been in development hell for years so I'll come back and edit this if that actually happens.

Monster Hunter Stories

I have not played nor watched gameplay of this one so I can't really describe it that deeply all I know is its a spinoff of Monster Hunter involving befriending and using the titular monsters in combat.

Telefang

Its sad this game series is most famous for being badly translated and repackaged as a Pokemon game. Anyway these are Japanese only titles though fan translations exist. The gimmick of this game is that you call monsters up on your cellphone to get them over to participate in combat. This series this sprout out when cellphones were consider newfangled and hip so it makes sense.

Anode Heart

Pretty sure this one is PC only. Takes some inspiration from the Digimon World games and is semi open world. Sadly this one I don't know much about outside of that though it does have a free demo on Steam for anyone that wants to try it for themselves.

Ooblets

Extremely wholesome monster catching and farming game. Battles are actually dancing competitions instead of violent confrontations and monsters are recruited simply by beating them in a fight. Thing is monsters will only fight you if you offer them their favourite food so that's where strategy comes in.

Moonstone Island

I know very little about this one except its also a monster catching and farming game. I've heard that its really good though and I believe its PC only right now but has a planned Switch port.

Timenet

Probably the most obscure ass monster tamer on this entire list. This is a Japanese exclusive set of Gameboy games featuring very cute monster designs... and Hello Kitty. Yes Sanrio made a monster tamer back in the late 90s. I only learned this even existed after scrolling down a comment section on a random YouTube video.

Abomi Nation

I'm mostly excluding roguelike games due to most having nothing but battles an 0 plot but this one does actually has a story! You play as the actual monster as you make your way through somewhat randomly generated maps with lots of other randomized elements. The game allows for a lot of customization including turning off permadeath if you're not a fan of that. The visual style is a bit crude but its still a pretty cute game.

Jade Concoon

Another somewhat obscure entry but at least this one got an English release. Anyway its an old RPG for the PSX with monster capturing and a very fascinating monster fusing mechanic that uses an algorithm to determine the appearance of the fusion. The player character can also participate in battle and the plot is very complex. The game also has a sequel on the PS2 but I know even less about that one.

Robopon

Now if you thought Palworld was bordering on some copyright infringement this game is basically nothing but "Pokemon but the designs are robots". Still worth bringing up I think!

Ni No Kuni

Not sure how I got to mentioning several obscure titles and somehow didn't mention something that really isn't. Ni No Kuni is real time battles between you and 2 party members. You can both battle as the actual human characters or switch into a monster. Wrath of the White Witch's visual style in particular is very whimsical and even has some animated cutscene done by Studio Ghibli. I haven't played any other game in the franchise.

Siralim

I haven't played any entry in this series yet (there's apparently 4 games + a spinoff) but from reading up on the most recent entry these are basically procedurally generated dungeon crawlers with an insane level of depth. The story is apparently not that great but the games themselves apparently also make fun of it so it seems its an intentional dev choice. Battles are 6 on 6 and there's over 1000 monsters to collect.

Disc Creatures

A monster tamer with a visual style similar to the Gameboy and Gameboy Color. It has 3 on 3 combat. Impressively I'm pretty sure it was developed by just one person in the RPG Maker engine (I'm honestly surprised this is the first indie game made with ya know... an engine meant for turned based RPGs).

Monster Harvest

A Dungeon crawler mixed with farming. Its a bit shorter than anything else I've mentioned here and its a bit glitchy but its a cute little game worth picking up on sale at the least. Notably also only about a 1/3 of the monster in the game are combative with the rest being either used for farming resources or as mounts.

Loomian Legacy

A Roblox monster tamer.... yes there's 2 of those in this (I could even have added 3 but I think one is in still a pretty early state). Pretty sure this started as a Pokemon fangame and become its own thing later. It has your typical 1 on 1 turn based combat and all that. I think its free to play and there's like several hours of content on it so maybe worth a gander.

Tales of Tonorio

Pretty sure this is the same basic deal as Loomian (Roblox game, started as a Pokemon fan game, etc etc) though its has its own world building and creature designs since I'm pretty sure its made by a completely different team.

So yeah that's all of them I can think of right now. If I learn of others and/or there's new releases I may expand this.

PS: There is almost certainly numerous typoes in this. This post is way longer than anything else I've ever made on Tumblr so I can't be arse to fix them you're just going to have to deal!

[jadeazora]

Occasional reminder that it does seem like we were originally intended to get some sort of followup to XY, either dual third versions like Ultra or perhaps a sequel like B2W2.

While I feel XY would have done better with a third version since it had so much potential with its initial release that remains unutilized (especially, ESPECIALLY with Team Flare and characters centric to it), a sequel would have been cool too.

I feel like maybe Malva, Sycamore, or both could have been our main antagonist, probably seeking out Lysandre. (It always felt like Sycamore should have had more of an idea what was going on with Lysandre, that he should have been much more actively involved with the overall story than he was. Back when I first played thru XY in 2013, I did think Sycamore would be our true villain, given how we first meet Lysandre at his lab and their friendship despite Lys being super suspicious, and with Sycamore downplaying his creepy speech as just passion. But nah, he's just in severe denial.)

I don't feel like Sycamore would actually be evil tho, but given the danger Lysandre poses, it would be dangerous to pave the way for him to emerge again. I think he'd probably be more seeking Lysandre out to apologize for not being there to help steer Lysandre in the right direction when he had the chance, before he became so desperate to resort to such extremes. (By the way, he actually does have a few "villain" Pokemon, at least in the XY demo. He has a Crobat, a Pokemon owned by several villain team leaders, and a Chandelure, which burns souls.)

Malva would definitely be the more actively villainous between them, since she clearly has a lot of resentment towards the player for putting a stop to their whole plot, and I don't think she'd be against trying to kickstart it again.