Pokémon Thread XXX: Hot Skitty on Wailord Action!

[boj0]

Thank you for the lesson in semantics. I truly feel blessed that the conversation has been enhanced by that post.

[Rater202]

Well excuse me fr finding it frustrating that a game tells you to go out to find, befriend, and train up a couple of hundred magical critters but then makes it physically impossible to find a good number of them so that you have to use what in another game would have been an optional mechanic.

Maybe I don't want to capture an animal and shove it in a little ball just so I can trade it to someone else for what I actually want. Maybe I don't want to trade the Pokemon I've been training for twenty levels to some other player just to fill a checkbox.

The Tagline is "gotta catch 'em all" but you physically can't, you have to trade between games and "own two-game boys and two copies of the game" was not the intended way of doing that at first.

Does it really count if someone else caught it for you?

[boj0]

Gotta Catch 'Em All was only the English tagline, the original tag in Japanese is "Get Pokemon"; they hardly use the slogan at all anymore, in addition to the diplomas you get never mention catching, only completing the Dex.

[MCerberus]

Let's be serious though, how much has "gotta catch em all" been drilled into permanence in your head only and solely because of the pokerap?

[Bartmanhomer]

Tons of people have, they even give you in-game items for doing it; if anything it's easier now than it was back in the day, you can get event Pokemon as long as you have the internet, trade with almost anyone in the world without leaving your room, and legendary Pokemon are farmable in raids. Easy? No. Doable? Yes.

Also, if you only play Gen 1, why would you care about Rayquaza's stats?

Good question. It's just something that bugs me about certain Pokemon even if I never play about later versions.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Let's be serious though, how much has "gotta catch em all" been drilled into permanence in your head only and solely because of the pokerap?

At least one hundred and fifty, or more you see, to be a Pokemon Master takes eternity!

[Rater202]

At least one hundred and fifty, or more you see, to be a Pokemon Master takes eternity!

Okay, can we talk about this? Ash Ketchem.

His first ever League, the Indigo Conference, Ash made it to the top 16 out of 256 people. Major accomplishment and he would have made it to the top eight or further if it wasn't for outside interference forcing him to go to his match with a team of unrested and injured Pokemon, putting him at a serious disadvantage and forcing him to rely on his most unreliable pokemon...

...Like, seriously, there better be a huge Asterix next to that, Ritchy, and the guy who beat Ritchy in the record books for that year t's kind of bull-crap the outside interference didn't get the match rescheduled or something. Delay i for 20 minutes so he can take his team to a Pokemon center for crap's sake.

He won the Orange League, was Orange League Champion.

Ash was Top eight in the Jhoto League. Top Eight in Hoen.

Top 4 in Sinnoh, and, again, let's be honest, the guy who became the Champion showed up with an Aeon and the God of Nightmares so that's not a fair fight. Kudos on Tobias for catching them or convincing them to join him but burning them to a tournament and using them against a ten-year-old was hardly sporting. And Ash beat th Darkrai, so... Another asterix.

Top eight to Unova.

Runner up of Kalos.

Alola Champion.

In addition to this, Ash aced two Battle Frontiers, caught and befriended 77 individual pokemon of a collective 95 individual species, and is on friendly terms with multiple legendary pokemon, been the subject of multiple Pokemon Prophecies, and saves the entire world an average of three times per region.

Ash's starter has, in complete seriousness, been referred to a the World's Most Powerful Pikachu... Which considering that it's beaten Legendary Pokemon and destroyed mountains, scans.

And there's probably some other stuff I'm missing.

Conanically, it has not even been a year since he got his starter because he got Pikachu on his tenth birthday and he's still ten.

What are the Requirements to be a Pokemon Master!?

Becuase if they are in any way reasonable, he's qualified many times over.

Ash should be world-famous.

Remember when he got to Hoenn and May's little brother recognized him on sight and rattled off Ash's stats? That should be like... Everyone by now.

[Lord Raziere]

Okay Rater?

you really need to step back and remember that Status Quo is God in the anime. there is no Watsonian explanation for why Ash can't catch a break and qualify to be a Pokemon Master, which has never been defined. the only explanation is "because Nintendo wants Ash to be their anime mascot to forever be on a journey but never achieve it, so that he can continue to be on a pokemon journey". it doesn't matter what the in-universe explanation is, because it matters about as much all the reasons why Batman can't clean up Gotham for good, because he is intended to always exist in the state of trying to do so eternally and when he succeeds the story ends.

I recommend that you let go of this, there is no answer that will satisfy you if you want this to be in-universe.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Alola Champion.

You mean they finally let the kid win a real, bona fide League Championship?

About time.

Conanically, it has not even been a year since he got his starter because he got Pikachu on his tenth birthday and he's still ten.

This is continuity snarl not fact: Misty remarks on their arrival to Viridian City (the second time, when he got his Earth Badge) that it had been about a year since they’d been there last. The Pikachu short in Spell of the Unown (? I think, might have been Power of One) had a big feast at the end that Ash tells Pikachu is to commemorate the anniversary of when they met. That was when they were still running around Johto so it’s been longer than that.

Black and White screwing up things like that are why I dropped the anime like a sack of potatoes.

What are the Requirements to be a Pokemon Master!?

Becuase if they are in any way reasonable, he's qualified many times over.

Ash should be world-famous.

Remember when he got to Hoenn and May's little brother recognized him on sight and rattled off Ash's stats? That should be like... Everyone by now.

Generally agree with this though; even people who don’t follow the various Pokemon Leagues should at least recognize him as ‘hey, it’s that kid from the news.’

[MCerberus]

Insane theories about the status quo? Haha it's my time.

I'm going to go with curse Ash has dealt with a lot of ghosts, specifically ones about tragic youths. I think he's trapped eternally ageless and in a kind of personal and professional stasis.

[Bartmanhomer]

Yes these people exist. Also, some people specifically go out of their way to collect full Shiny Dexes

Wow. They have my respect.

[Saambell]

It's not like there's anything else to do with the game after you beat the league. You either try to finish the dex, or hunt shinies, or get into online battling. That last one is a rats den of ego, frustration, and jerks. So for the large number of people, its a lot better to just focus on the other things, and since finishing the dex is kind of easy in the last few games, and actually helps hunt shinies, a lot of people turn to those two. Its also a shame that they have basically abandoned any kind of long form storied post game, and its now just built to funnel you into online battles. So when there's basically no end game, and what exists pushes you to a toxic environment, it makes sense to ignore all that and focus on collecting shiny pokemon, and if you are going to do that for any length of time, might as well focus on making a complete pokedex of only shiny pokemon. Cause its by far the saner option.

[boj0]

This probably says more about me than anything, but I drastically prefer comp battles to an anemic post-game; the two brothers from Sword/Shield's "story" exist as an exercise in how obnoxious you can make an NPC while still being able to dangle a prize for the player. The more positively received post-games seem to be GSC with Kanto region, which is just more game plus nostalgia, and the Battle Frontier, which is pretty much comp battles against the AI.

At least playing against people is challenging, I guess?

[Saambell]

The thing with online comp battles is theres maybe 4 flavors. Random battles through the battlespot, VGC, Showdown, and finding an online battling community. Each has their own issues. Battlespot is filled with hackers. VGC is also filled with hackers, but has the up side of being the official format and prizes are possible if you get far enough into it. Showdown is where the more egotistical and rude players flock to, as it has the bonus of being its own site, so you dont need to pay money to play. And online battling communities sound great, but they are few and rare nowadays, and hinge on the owner of said place not being a bad guy. I was sadly part of one that lasted 10 years, constantly cycling people cause the owner was a egotistical jerk, which ended up being forced to shut down as said owner was outed as, well, something very much not nice. But it left me a bad opinion of those kinds of sites.

In all, i can very much understand those who dont want to deal with all that and just want to collect cute sparkly critters.

[Bartmanhomer]

The thing with online comp battles is theres maybe 4 flavors. Random battles through the battlespot, VGC, Showdown, and finding an online battling community. Each has their own issues. Battlespot is filled with hackers. VGC is also filled with hackers, but has the up side of being the official format and prizes are possible if you get far enough into it. Showdown is where the more egotistical and rude players flock to, as it has the bonus of being its own site, so you dont need to pay money to play. And online battling communities sound great, but they are few and rare nowadays, and hinge on the owner of said place not being a bad guy. I was sadly part of one that lasted 10 years, constantly cycling people cause the owner was a egotistical jerk, which ended up being forced to shut down as said owner was outed as, well, something very much not nice. But it left me a bad opinion of those kinds of sites.

In all, i can very much understand those who dont want to deal with all that and just want to collect cute sparkly critters.

Oh wow! I didn't know that the Pokemon Online Battles was that bad. I'm glad that you left the toxic site.

[boj0]

Eh, if you don't bother with the chat rooms it cuts out a ton of noise, not to mention you can set defaults so you're battles are invite only, hide messages, and turn off nicknames. It's reached a point where you have to go out of your way to engage with people on Showdown.

When "Salt" compilations were getting big again a few months ago, one creator (Foxly?) was complaining that actually finding people who act aggressively in chat unprompted was the biggest hurdle.

[Qwertystop]

This probably says more about me than anything, but I drastically prefer comp battles to an anemic post-game; the two brothers from Sword/Shield's "story" exist as an exercise in how obnoxious you can make an NPC while still being able to dangle a prize for the player. The more positively received post-games seem to be GSC with Kanto region, which is just more game plus nostalgia, and the Battle Frontier, which is pretty much comp battles against the AI.

At least playing against people is challenging, I guess?

Battle Tower was basically just competitive battles, but Battle Frontier added in interesting new twists (quality varying) that mostly haven't recurred since, unless maybe you count some of the weirder coliseums in Battle Revolution . And DPPt had, in addition to the Tower or Frontier, a few postgame-only routes and Stark Mountain for a dungeon.

[Emmerlaus]

I miss Pokemon Factory, where you were bestow random Pokemon to fight with.

[Rater202]

If you didn't know about its evolutionary line, would you believe that Blaziken was supposed to be a chicken?

[Lord Raziere]

I dunno, it'd still clearly be a bird though, and english pokemon names are often combinations of animal and elemental words, with blaziken being part "blaze" so whats the "-iken" part? well what bird do we know has those letters? chicken! therefore I could totally believe it, because of its name.

[MCerberus]

If you didn't know about its evolutionary line, would you believe that Blaziken was supposed to be a chicken?

When even Memphis style isn't hot enough.

[boj0]

The avian Fighting type that looks like a kind of Japanese chicken bred for fighting? No I don't see it.

[Rater202]

When even Memphis style isn't hot enough.

I already linked the Dorkly video once,

[MCerberus]

I already linked the Dorkly video once,

I am doomed to be chained to the pokememes forever.
Although idea for a sticker: the Sriracha logo but a torchic.

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

If you didn't know about its evolutionary line, would you believe that Blaziken was supposed to be a chicken?

On its own? I'd probably say it was a based off a Secretary Bird. Y'know, with the super snake kicking feet.

[MCerberus]

A couple months or so ago: "Aha I like the pictures of the little mons on the cards"
Now: "I'll pick up a box of boosters after the standard format tournament."

I've fallen for the allure of the comic shop again.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I was a little surprised to see the POGO Gyms have been revamped. There are people in them now! The new animations are much nicer too.

[Bartmanhomer]

Which is a better Ground-type Pokemon for Pokemon Let's Go: Onix, Marowak or Rhydon?

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

Which is a better Ground-type Pokemon for Pokemon Let's Go: Onix, Marowak or Rhydon?

Generally speaking, probably Marowak, since it doesn't have the additional weaknesses of also being Rock type.

[MCerberus]

DYK gaming paid for the translation of a supplemental pokedex written by the creators and now translated by the guy that translated red/blue. So this has a lot of early lore weirdness. AND IT'S ALL CANON.

Spoiler

Show

Alright so modern scientific pokemon study started in enlightenment-era France. FRANCE. Not Kalos. Note that everything seems to have changed at some point. The pokedex is written with language about pokemon 'in the nation'. The pokemon war = global unification war? What does the government look like.

Also pokeballs drug pokemon into a coma. There's nothing in the pokeball but endless dreamless sleep