#it better happen gsc

[kangelfumo]

AME POP UP PARADE PROTOTYPE!!

[c0rpsedemon]

the mdzs manga announcement is a double edged sword bc on one hand i'm so so so so hyped to have a comic-style adaptation that isn't the manhua bc i'm. allergic to the webtoon-esque vertical scroll style + prefer b&w comics to colored ones stylistically. and also japanese manga means maybe japanese anime adaptation which means even more mdzs figures bc the jp figure companies will finally be forced to acknowledge it exists which means maybe we'll get more of characters who aren't wangxian please i beg of you i want lsz at the very least. on the other hand it's big news for the people who watched the jp dub of the donghua w english subs and i absolutely resent that.

[taffybee]

not that anyone's asking BUT my hot take on giovanni is he should be retired rn. not from like a "the pokemon company should stop talking about him" (weeeeelll that's sort of part of it but. hear me out) kind of way BUT in a. he should LITERALLY not be doing team rocket shit in ANY canon universe anymore. and it would be TOTALLY in-character of him to do so if the medias still using him characterized him the way he should be. welcome to my ted talk let me explain myself

FULL DISCLOSURE: i like giovanni. like, a not normal amount i fear. all of that opening sounds like i don't but i totally feel stupid emotions about this guy. anyways:

GEN 1. gen 1 games are like... NOT known for their compelling dialogue. and in cases like archie and maxie in gen 3 getting remakes in gen 6, their characterization and dialogue gets (kind of subjectively but i feel this is a popular opinion anyways) Much Better. i think that goes for a Lot of stuff where they give old guys new dialogue in spin offs (gestures at masters ex which i think is Great for making characters Actually Interesting)

but i feel like with giovanni there's been a DOWNGRADE in character since his appearance because he no longer Progresses.

i WILL say masters ex does Some Work to try and make him Deeper than just "I'm Evil for the sake of Being Evil grahgghh 😈" but it's like. overshadowed by All The Other Stuff.

plus he IS rainbow rocket giovanni in masters and i'm like OBSESSEDDD with team rainbow rocket. but i also don't think it should. Exist. I'M GLAD IT DOES but i find it out of character for giovanni to do At All. I CAN EXPLAIN I PROMISE.

team rocket's goals as an organization are and always have been: make money via stealing or otherwise exploiting pokémon. that's all it NEEDED to be. because it was gen 1 and no one needed to be ripping apart the universe yet.

giovanni himself sees pokemon as a means to an end. that much has stayed consistent in all of his appearances. but what CHANGES things in what happens when he LOSES for the FINAL TIME in r/b/y:

I WILL DEDICATE MY LIFE TO THE STUDY OF POKEMON. that's like CRAZY sort of redemption. and you Could argue against me to say "well have you considered he was lying" and i Have but i think it's SO much cooler if he was being legit. if he was so Changed by losing So Many Times to a little boy who just cared So Much for his pokémon that he needed to experience that for himself.

I mentioned in my previous giovanni post that pokémon origins has characterized giovanni "right" and THAT'S because via continuously fighting red and seeing his passion for battling as well as his love of pokémon firsthand, giovanni rediscovers his lost passion for pokémon that he had when HE was younger, and he sees HIMSELF in who red is and decides to disband team rocket after their gym battle so he can turn his life around. i HIGHLY recommend watching episode 3 of origins if you haven't seen it. it's freaking Marvelous.

ANYWAYS. THIS is the characterization of giovanni i support the MOST because it's not terribly complicated but still has nice depth to his character that you could read into.

BUT if we're going by this characterization of him, he should. NOT BE DOING TEAM ROCKET STUFF NOW! he SHOULD have been retired storywise by game freak after that and retired job-wise. studying pokémon and touching grass.

but THEN. gen 2 happens. (... well, gen 2 and the first gens 1/2 remakes.)

gen 2 introduces the concept of "let's bring giovanni back". which i wouldn't complain about if giovanni wasn't ALSO trying to get back. WHY. WE ESTABLISHED IN THE FIRST GAME HE'S DONE. and gen 2 didn't DIRECTLY SAY giovanni was up to come back (as far as i'm aware, i did NOT play gsc, someone correct me if i'm wrong). but when frlg released, they Changed dialogue from the original to FIT this idea:

NOW "studying pokemon" has become "training". there IS no character development for him here, he JUST wants to get stronger to be a Better mob boss. and this is supported by the celebi time travel event where he's ABOUT to rejoin team rocket before you beat him

the big problem with this (and any giovanni dialogue in the time travel event) for me is that it frames everything that happened to him in gen 1 as "giovanni wasn't a good enough mob boss then but now that he's had some time to Train he's ready to be a Better Mob Boss" WRONG! THAT WAS NEVER THE ISSUE!! part of the pros of team rocket at its peak was that giovanni was Unknown to most and could direct operations in the shadows AND he could keep his business as a gym leader because NO ONE KNEW. but now EVERYONE knows and team rocket can LITERALLY NEVER REACH THAT PEAK AGAIN. the ONLY CORRECT thing to do in this situation is Disband and Do Other Shit (cough cough study pokémon and touch grass cough cough)

this seems obvious to me that this desire to keep dragging him back into things is the games way of being like "woaahh!! callback time!!" and then later down the line "woaaahh!! nostalgia time!!!" (because they wouldn't have retconned that final gen 1 dialogue if it wasn't) and while i can Appreciate it to a degree (because i am Not Immune to getting STUPID EXCITED when old blorbos show up) i think continuing to make giovanni show up to Be Evil isn't the way to go about it. or at LEAST not canon timeline giovanni.

and the gen 1/2 remakes for ME is like... the beginning of the issue, but as we've gotten Further Away from gen 1 in time, the more i feel they stray from where he ended in the original in favor of making him More Blandly Evil. he feels constrained to one-liners about how the worlds an EVIL PLACE and he's just playing the game or whatever alpha sigma shit he's on in the masters trainer lodge

rainbow rocket is kind of CRAZY to me because they take this mob boss who likes exploiting pokemon and scientists for money and they make him start. opening interdimensional bad ending au wormholes to take over the world with aliens. (also having him willing to share the power with all the other evil bosses, some who have in their universes Successfully taken over the world??? heeeellll no. not even my proposed toned down characterization of this guy would be cool with that realistically.) it all just seems to be Way Beyond what team rocket SHOULD be doing. they're The Mafia. making The Mafia open wormholes is CRAZY. but giovanni HAS to be the main guy because. Nostalgia.

idk how much sense i make when i say this but when you make team rocket less cunning and less focused on doing their work in the shadows and running their shady operations stealthily. you get. a more ambitious team skull. and there's nothing WRONG with team skull but it's NOT WHAT TEAM ROCKET IS SUPPOSED TO BE. they've got more of a reputation than that but modern depictions of giovanni and the organization as a whole water him down to "i love Causing Problems" and less "i love Good Business"

whatever. giovanni in modern depictions MAKES SENSE if you followed along the slow regression of his character in real time. but i feel like if you look where he is now and look where he Ended in r/b/y you have like. Two Different Characters. and i think having a redeemed or even kind-of-half-redeemed giovanni could be SO much more interesting in showing up again than having him be Generally Evil

AND IT'S NOT LIKE THAT REALLY POSES ISSUES FOR MASTERS EX. cyrus is half-reformed WITHIN the story. archie and maxie too (although they were already kind of like that). lysandre HAS an evil moment but he DOESN'T DIE like he does in canon and THEN he's FINE. he still "runs" team flare but he's NOT LONGER A THREAT TO THE PROTAGONISTS

what i think COULD'VE been cool in some hypothetical scenario is have giovanni come back for cameos but Not as team rocket's leader. have him Turn Down the rocket admin radio broadcast. hell, having him come back to help the player Stop Them if he feels particularly annoyed. LET THAT MAN GO ON VACATION. WHATEVER. there's SO MUCH you can do with him the way cameos are done for the Other non-evil characters and there are options where you could Still battle him as a Test Of Strength but THERE'S JUST. SO MUCH WRONG WITH HIM STILL BEING OVERTLY EVIL.

i understand keeping giovanni evil for nostalgia. i Get it i PROMISE i do. i just think it makes him a weaker character, and the companies sacrifice character development for sales. but if you wanted to have a bad guy who was JUST BAD and would CONTINUE to be bad if given the chance,

GHETSIS IS. RIGHT THERE.

that's the end of that for me i think. i'm SO down to discuss or debate this take for fun. i just think giovanni should retire and pet his cat because it's funny.

[bean-in-dice]

WIP meme

Thanks for tagging me @thelaithlyworm !

Rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

(Hope I'm doing this correct lol

Also, i usually name things after Im done writing, so none of these have names as they are wips)

1. A Bai Jintang and Gongsun Ce fic (for SCI: The Mystery Novel). I think I meant to name this something like "Blood, Glass and Bone Ashes"

With introspective GSC pov, where I analyse their horrific relationship start, and what continuing meant for both of them, and where they stand now. Though I HATED them in the first few books, by book 4 they had unexpectedly grown on me and I wanted to do something about that, but to my regret I only wrote like 500 words at the time and postponed it till I've read all of SCI, but by book 5 I kinda started losing interest on the series therefore I keep pushing this Wip to the back shelf. Sorry, fic. Maybe one day I'll get back to you🫠

2. Baby Pangzi fic

Probably will never happen because I wrote a baby Xiaoge fic and included all the best baby shenanigans in it already. Dui bu qi, Pangzi! Ive done you great injustice 😭

3. A Heixie fic that acknowledges Pingxie, Huaxie, Pangxie, Heiping and Heihua all at the same time.

Will probably finish this, it kinda feels all over the place but this is a headcanon so dear to me so I will try my best to brush it up.

4. A One Million Yen Girl (jmovie) au for Zhang Qiling

I've written like 1/8 of this, I really want to write it but I feel like it's beyond my abilities and it stopped being fun. There was this aloof and extremely introvert atmosphere in the Japanese movie but that's what... uh, handwaves....the Jmovie vibes tends to be like sometimes but that's so not the C-story vibe, not even in the most thought provoking, languid and quiet Cmovie/Cdrama, and I thought I could make it work because Zhang Qiling is aloof himself but the more I write the more I feel like this only looks appealing on visual media not when you write it.

OR it's not actually as bad as I think but because I already have this exact image in my head, inability to achieve it makes me more dissapointed. One needs to be careful when they adapt a story from one culture to another that is quite different from the first one, and if you are feeling awkward you better stop. Some things only work in your head and not on paper.

Now for the tagging

Hmm

I don't know a lot of dmbj people on tumblr huhu. @missfangirll @mekare-art @epicwalrus if you will? 🙈

Oh well, I realise I've left nothing for anyone to ask about anw, I've already provided descriptions. Should I remove them, then? Nvm 😂

[bearimba]

Kris (Pokemon GSC/HGSS) Character Headcanons

And last but certainly not least, it's time for the third of the New Bark Town kids, Kris!

Here's my list of headcanons for her:

Her name is actually Crystal, she just goes by Kris because she likes it better (she spells it with a K because when they were kids, Ethan said it was "cooler" and she thought it was amusing so it stuck)

Her pokemon are Furret, Dunsparce, Slowpoke, and Tauros.

She's four years older than Lyra and Ethan more or less, making her about 20 by the time HGSS rolls around. She's friends with both of them, but because of the age gap and some other stuff I'll cover more in a later post, she becomes more of a tired older sibling figure. This does become a slight point of contention, but once her friends leave on their journeys and mature a bit, they're able to reunite on equal ground and much better terms.

She's super chill most of the time but can be incredibly dry and sarcastic. Despite this she's genuinely and openly supportive of her loved ones a lot and would probably kill for them. (unfortunately for them, she's also not afraid to turn her fury on them too if necessary. Sometimes tough love is valid if your friends are risking their lives by being idiots :D )

She's just a little tiny bit of a know-it-all (like the "erm actually ☝️🤓" kind of know-it-all). She's not afraid to speak up and debate with someone about the subjects she's educated in, and while she always tries to stay civil about it, she can't help the occasional snide comment that slips out. Of course, even though she cares more about being correct than "winning", she can't help but feel a bit smug whenever she's right and sulky when she happens to be wrong.

She's also pretty snarky and even a bit judgemental sometimes, but she was raised to be very polite, so she tries her best to keep it on the down-low. Still, lying to anyone about something shallow always leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, so when she's trying her best not to be rude (usually around strangers---she lets loose more around her friends), she'll get really vague or just refuse to say anything if it's really bad.

She's already been on her own journey when she was around 13-14, during which she managed to get most of the badges and dominated the Battle Tower (which has expanded into the Battle Frontier by the time HGSS rolls around. She likes to visit from time to time when she needs to blow off steam). She probably could've gotten all of the badges if she hadn't gotten tired of it. She's a very family-oriented person, so being away from home for so long wore on her nerves.

She doesn't battle often anymore, mostly just to exercise her pokemon, but she can still hold her own even against ace trainers. This is mostly because she uses a lot more strategy compared to most people, as she's able to come up with plans on how to defeat an opponent even if she's never seen their team before thanks to her extensive knowledge of pokemon. However! if her plans happen to get knocked off track, it's much easier to overpower her team.

She takes over the lab from Elm, though it doesn't happen until he's basically forced to retire (the man loves his work, ok?). He still hangs around though especially since his home is literally on the second floor.

She also specializes in evolution, but instead of focusing on breeding like he did, she's more interested in requirement-based evolution (like why some pokemon will remain in their first stage of evolution despite being old enough/having the experience to evolve. or why some pokemon need certain items to evolve. or why some pokemon evolve with trading. stuff like that. it's definitely a wide field but she enjoys the variety a lot).

She has this habit of flicking people's heads if she's annoyed with them. Light flick? she's being lighthearted. Painful flick? she's actually upset. Oftentimes she'll flick herself if she's particularly stumped on something, usually to do with her research.

She owns a bicycle her parents bought from Goldenrod and takes it absolutely everywhere---girl could probably ride across the entire region if she wanted to.

Her pokegear is horrendously outdated, and the screen is so cracked it's a miracle it still works. Regardless, she refuses to get a new one because "it turns on just fine."

She has the worst handwriting known to mankind, but she still insists on scribbling everything down herself. It's like a rite of passage for every new researcher to try and decipher her notes well enough to transpose them into the lab's computer system.

Her love language is sending pictures to her friends. except. most of the time it'll either be motion-blurred pics of random pokemon with captions like "good find today👍" or the world's most incomprehensible memes.

Despite teasing her friends about talking too much, she can be just as bad when talking about any vein of pokemon science, especially with fellow colleages/researchers. She's much more of a nerd than she likes to let on.

[dragon-master-clair]

🎙️What's your favorite thing about Clair and why? What's your favorite headcanon you assigned to her?

[ask game]

//oh man, there's so much that i like about clair and she's been my favorite gym leader (along with flannery) for years now.

//one thing i've always loved, which is really the whole thing about her character in the games, is how she's putting on an air of confidence. she comes across as kind of a pompous jerk, but like, her cousin is the champion and she clearly has some issues with not being seen as good a trainer as he is.

//which is wild, because she's the eighth (and therefore toughest) gym leader you face in gsc/hgss. she is a good trainer. she says flat out that she can go toe to toe with the e4 and hold her own. to me, clair is very like... gifted kid coded. she feels like she's used to being the best damn trainer in the room and has trouble acknowledging people can be better than her. she must be under a lot of pressure to perform well as a gym leader, y'know?

//so for my headcanon, i've explained this character trait like so: she really is talented. training comes easily to her. but as she got older, the margin between her and your average johtoni kid the same age narrowed as they gained experience, and she wasn't as far in front of the pack as she had been. she doesn't quite have the introspective skills necessary to discern that this didn't happen because she got worse, but that everybody caught up to her and she's closer to the average than she realized as a kid when she was wiping the floor with everyone she battled.

//that being said: she really is a better trainer than she feels like she is on the inside. she's actively good at what she does, not just because training comes easily to her, but also because she cares about being the best and works really hard at it.

[crystalelemental]

I've been mulling over how to start this one for a while now, and I think I've settled on this. I've talked a lot about watching stuff from Professor Bopper, and his Pokemon videos in particular have been fun. But one of his independent videos is about yellow paint mechanics in videogames, and he specifically calls out that gamers, as a group, are uniquely bad at games, often ignoring the function of what the game wants you to be doing in favor of what they think you should be asked to do, and getting mad when the game meets expectations. This broadly rings very true, and it's that very bias in myself that I aim to combat with a lot of my replays lately, and it's been liberating.

However. I feel like sometimes the gamers are right. Sometimes it is bad design. Sometimes they developers made a decision, and they design their game around that decision in a way that teaches the player exactly what they should be doing, but the baseline concept is just...bad. It wasn't properly thought out, and it feels, in its entirety, like it would've been better if they had made some changes. I'm sure that doesn't happen often, though. Certainly not in any big name franchises.

Anyway, I finished Let's Go Eevee.

Positives first. The game is a pretty interesting take on Pokemon as an adventure game. Eevee is wildly overpowered. It gets higher base stats, and a special 90BP move with an absolutely busted secondary effect in every one of its possible evolutionary types. The combination of Electric/Ice/Psychic/Dark perfectly answers the entire Elite Four, while also providing Dual Screens and sure-Paralysis. Ice's only flaw is a pretty middling secondary effect, compared to sure-Burn, sure-Leech Seed on a damage move, HP recovery, or curing all status. Eevee is a monster that can handle pretty much everything.

I find this interesting, because in some measure, Pokemon is always about making bonds with your Pokemon. The idea of having your Signature Partner that does everything with you is a neat approach to the usual rotation of a team. It's always been possible to steamroll the entire game with a single partner, that's most of the basis of a speedrun. But it's rare for the game to lean so heavily into it. The sheer breadth of tools given to Eevee give it a presence similar to that of the Chrobin combo of Fire Emblem Awakening. More on that later.

Because now it's time to shift steadily into the problems of this game. Difficulty in Pokemon is a big topic, and has been for a long time. Personally, I have come down strongly on the side of "I don't think any Pokemon game has ever been difficult, and there is no point in time where chasing the white whale of a difficult Pokemon game resulted in improvement in the experience." Pokemon is not fun because of challenge. It is fun because of effort, and having something to work toward. The reason older games appeal so strongly to me isn't because they are harder. RBY and GSC are kinda piss-easy. But what they are is limiting. Movepools barely exist, and a ton of a playthrough is finding ways to keep your preferred teammates relevant across various challenges, all while acknowledging you do not have access to most of their best tools yet. It's scrounging around through TMs to find a set that works, and coming up with some really creative solutions that many modern games don't push you to do. As a quick example: Larvitar. In Gen 2, it doesn't learn Earthquake naturally until 49, which balloons to 56 as Pupitar. Pupitar can evolve at 55, and if you don't stop these evolutions, Tyranitar cannot learn it until 61. This is a beast you find just before the postgame superboss at around level 15. In Gen 9, it learns Earthquake a level 31. There's just far less to actually build to, as players are given early access to most everything, and much earlier access to complete movesets.

Let's Go...kinda has this issue? But only kinda. I expected Brock to be an immediate wall for an Eevee, only to find that Eevee now learns Double Kick super early and can two-shot his Onix no sweat. Whoops! The progression of special moves also open up right at points you'd want them. You get Fire, Water, and Electric in Celadon, which answers Misty and the Rock Tunnel hikers. You learn Dark and Psychic in Celadon, which is ideal timing for all the Poison types you're about to encounter between Erika and Team Rocket, while Dark...okay, Psychic also answers Ghost but you know. Ice, Grass, and Fairy drop in Fuchsia, but I think that's because those three weren't going to hard counter anything past that point anyway. Like it gives you exactly the tools on Eevee that you'd want to answer the present threat for free, so Eevee never truly struggles with anything. It's always a clean sweep.

Which raises a big issue when it comes to the general feel of the region. I recently replayed LeafGreen, and while the postgame is rough, the main game never feels like too much to me. Even the "slower" segments are fun, because by then, I'm working with something new that's low level. It's why I never minded all the Rocket segments in Johto either. Sure there's a billion fights, but I need about that many to train this Horsea. I wound up picking up a Poliwhirl, intending to trade for Jynx, and accidentally landed a Modest nature. Blastoise was not doing so hot, and I decided fuck it, I'm rocking Poliwrath. Which meant leveling up something far behind, using those extra routs and the Silph Co section. That's great! That's as intended!

What purpose do those sections serve in a game with only one Pokemon? When you don't need a team, and have no reason to train anything else...what do they do? It's just busywork for no real reason. "But they give you three Pokeballs!" Pokeballs stopped working around level 10, my dude. This is not a reward. And there's no EVs in this game, so it's completely trivial to fight anything but the keynote bosses.

The removal of EVs was...not ideal. Instead they use Candy, which is specific to a stat. You gain candy by sending Oak copies of Pokemon, or rarely when you catch them. With a higher catch chain, where you keep catching the same beast repeatedly, you have better odds, but it's never guaranteed or even all that likely. This system is, in some ways, meant to be a controlled form of Stat EXP. You just naturally gain your stats as you accumulate candy. It's not a terrible idea, but its implementation is Extremely Bad.

Candy, as it turns out, caps at +200 in each stat. In case you're wondering how many that is, it's approximately 500 of the basic candy, 300 of the L candy, and 600 of the XL candy. For context, I tried doing a chain with Eevee on Route 17, which gives Sp Def candy. I caught enough to get a chain of 20, and upon that 20th catch, I received nothing. Just fucking nothing. The 21st catch gave me around 6 basic candy, and 2 L candy. To say this takes forever is a wild understatement. By and large this is not necessary. My wife did not do as much catching as I did, had far less candy, and still beat the League pretty much exclusively with Eevee. For main game, this is...annoying, but unobtrusive.

The instant you hit postgame it's a nightmare. Because, Red is back. And to fight him, you have to beat six Master Trainers, who will do a 1v1 mirror match with a specific Pokemon, but theirs is trained to have like +150 in three stats. Doesn't that sound fun? For context, I put all my massive candy stocks from repeated chain captures onto Eevee and hit around +80 in like two stats. My playthrough was like 20 hours.

This begins the descent into the really bad, which is that Let's Go bears two great sins: one of its birth, and one of its maker. Let's Go is, at its heart, a gacha. It was literally born from Pokemon Go, which is designed to be eternally tedious to force microtransactions, and Let's Go emulates that in its postgame perfectly, without the microtransactions. The one of its maker is that, as someone who will grind in Pokemon Crystal literally just because I find it fun to do so at certain points, this system still could've had me. Opposing trainers very clearly have sequentially boosted AP from candy application, it's not a bad system to use for difficulty curves. It's a lot steadier than BDSP's sudden "everything is maximized without warning," and I don't begrudge the idea of doing this, even going so far as to question why they don't do this with EVs in the main series. It's not a terrible idea, and in fact has some serious merit.

Unfortunately, it is blockaded by the sins of its creator. Masuda just really though it was super important that people fulfill his vision of immersion by having to throw the controller like you're catching Pokemon. Nevermind that motion controls have been known garbage since about a week after the Wii came out and no motion that resembles an actual throw gets registered by this system, we have to do some dumb flailing shit that, for no discernible reason, either goes straight on target or miles to the left despite the same arc being used. Worth noting: Pokemon will run from you if you don't catch them fast enough. Sometimes "Fast enough" is in two balls. If they run your chain breaks instantly. Are you having fun yet?

Let's Go has the honor of being the worst capture mechanics in a series with continuously terrible capture mechanics. Their decision to demand motion controls, refusing to just let it be buttons if you're using the console docked and not allowing the pro controller hookup at all, torpedoes everything positive this game has, because it renders it borderline unplayable. "But didn't you say Eevee sweeps?" Yeah, but it relies on you catching things. Not just that, but getting good at the arc. Battle EXP is truncated, you get far more from effective captures, and the biggest modifiers are "first try" and "excellent" when the circle is tiny. I'm sure someone will insist it's fine when you get used to it, but from my experience, it never gets better. It is always incomprehensible which way the ball will go. Moreover, trying to use a quick flick of the wrist motion resulted in a 100% rate of the ball immediately dropping to the ground, so I had to actually swing my whole arm, and mysteriously I have had this growing pain in my shoulder all week despite playing in shorter and shorter bursts. Add this one to the same pile as Hades, under "Games that cause me to take recoil damage" I suppose.

But, I can hear it now. Some are going to call this a skill issue. And you're right, it is. There are people much better about this than I am. However, I still think this is a problem, because as a mechanic, it fails to do what games are supposed to do for players: provide control and feedback.

Main game Pokemon games have terrible catch mechanics, but this is usually only around Legendary Pokemon and the occasional hard to catch thing like Beldum or something. That difficulty is just pure RNG, because the rate is so low. But even in those scenarios, the player has options to control how bad it really is. Knock them to low HP, inflict Sleep for best odds, catch a bunch for critical capture Gens 5+, use a Roto Power in Gen 7; there are modifiers the player can apply that are inherently beneficial. NPCs will tell you about them, but even without listening to a single one, you can actually experience the difference yourself through the gameplay. Trying to catch a Pidgey or something with full HP does mean it can break out. Trying to catch one at like 1/3rd HP almost never does. Hitting something with status seems to result in much more assured captures. The player takes actions, and the game provides feedback on whether those actions were the right call.

Let's Go's catch mechanics do not have any of this. It's so disconnected from the idea that all the NPC advice is now just "if it's a red color it's gonna be harder," which is useless because guess what, Ultra Balls don't actually change the color for things that push level 40, and Legends are glaring red no matter what you do. Throwing it dead center for an Excellent toss did not ever seem to improve my odds; I had just as many breakouts from that as I did wildly off-center barely touched the catch circle tosses. I can take no action aside from finite berries, which disappear after a single use of a ball, and do not seem to have any method of acquiring more since they don't seem to be sold in shops. I learned very early that Razz Berries are functionally worthless when I hit a Great toss on a Yellow circle and it just broke right out and was Orange again. So maybe I'm being uncharitable. It does give feedback, the feedback just tells you not to do anything but keep throwing and hope you get lucky, because nothing you do will help. What a fun system!

Unquestionably, Pokemon Let's Go is the worst Pokemon game. But I feel like that is solely based on direction. Had the catch mechanics been less awful, there is merit to the idea of a game where you have one (1) defined partner through everything. I think it would've benefited from a Legends Arceus style approach that fixated more on catching as a primary goal than battling, given how meaningless the constant trainer fights were, but maybe that's just me. Whatever the case, I feel very strongly that this is the worst Pokemon game, and that it is the poster child for upper management staying the hell away from things. The instant you let them talk about their great ideas for what the art should be like, the instant you are damning that art.

[cloversdreams]

im off nendos as a general rule but let me tell you, there are a handful of characters thatd make me break that in a heartbeat (i shant speak them into existence)

number one and least likely of all being gokudera

my boy. my son. my nostalgia. i am once again cursing gsc for not making the entire main lineup because they wanted to toss in popular villains instead. kindly perish.

tbh pop up parade would be a better choice all around anyway. make it happen and ill buy every single char from the set you release, cowards.

[underground-boss-clay]

Tell me all about your lore for Pryce. I just finished the GSC Adventures manga chapter last week and I'm intrigued.

((WELP TIME TO TAKE A CROWBAR TO THAT PARTICULAR BOX, SORRY PANDORA BUT WE BUSTIN' THIS WIDE OPEN--))

((Going to put it under a read more because this is gonna get long, detailed and contain spoilers up to the GSC chapters of Adventures.))

So firstly, to get the big weird one out of the way: I have NO IDEA why the manga characterized Pryce the way they did. In literally NOWHERE ELSE will you get "takes over Team Rocket to grab Celebi" from this old man. Hell, the need to make ANOTHER Team Rocket villain when Giovanni is STILL ALIVE boggles the mind.

But so this gives us the question: how do you balance the idea of the Masked Man with his usual in-game depiction of "stern but cares about you" grandpa?

My answer? Batman.

Let me elaborate:

Before Red goes in and defeats Giovanni, Team Rocket is everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, in Kanto. On top of that, the manga even has Gym Leaders like Surge, Koga and Blaine working as members of Team Rocket. Now I don't think this means they all joined willingly--heck, my idea for Koga is that Team Rocket forced him to join by holding Janine hostage--but if the idea of a criminal organization having members in essentially government/leadership positions sounds like some Batman comics where he was fighting the Mafia instead of one of his rogue's gallery? Yeah, I picked up on that too.

When we see Team Rocket in GS/HGSS, it's three years after they've been disbanded. Considering that they were well situated in Kanto by the time RGB/FRLG happens, you would think in-universe (because we know irl it was more "shit wait we get to make a SEQUEL???") they'd be able to cross the border more easily. UNLESS someone was sabotaging their attempts to sneak across the border or bribe/persuade Johto officials. And who better than a Gym Leader of Johto, and an experienced one at that?

Putting this all in a more protagonist light also recolors Will, Karen, Green and Silver's inclusion, because as we all know, Batman also adopted kids. In this case however, Pryce would want to minimize the involvement of his wards in his vigilante work. He's canonically a grandfather after all, so keeping kids safe would be a high priority of his.

Now obviously there are way too many "Masked Men" characters in Pokémon. However, Pryce isn't actually bat-themed either (that would be Koga). So I took some liberties to redesign the outfit and give it a new name.

[aqqleshiqqing-archive]

some thoughts about GSC's chapter 145 of volume 14 (i sound like a nerd here)

this contains major spoilers about certain canonical character relations so keep that in mind if you want to read

soo like this scene right

part of me wants to extend this scene a little longer, for gold and silver to speak about the experience they had to go through just now.

so first of all, they got hammered by the masked man (until they were saved by entei) and were rendered unconsious. gold wakes up with an aching pain on his knees, and a few of his gear went missing (his hat, bag, and a shoe). silver wakes up and explains to gold how they were miraculously saved by something.

silver almost concludes that they would've died. let's just say that silver did complete his sentence on that statement (because gold cut him off here)

what if that thought really clicked to gold, that he really almost could've died from the masked man's doing? gold was almost wiped out of his existence for pete's sake. he lost his bag, his hat, his gear. a lot of things. he must be so grateful to be alive.

he can't imagine what would've happened if she finds out he's a goner. he probably had to sit still for a moment, and thank silver for being with him. he expresses how maybe he's gone a bit too far in trying to pursue something "only adults" would do. but he was only just a kid with big goals.

he realizes that he misses her, a lot. the throbbing pain on his knee would remind him of how she would always be there to aid his reckless self and still be the loving sister he knew he had. now he's alone in a cave, it must be cold, dark and scary. he feels unsafe, without her to make him feel better.

silver can't help but feel, some sort of jealousy with how gold muses about his sister. he's missing his sister. does silver even have someone who's out there, waiting for him to be okay? perhaps one person, or even two - but they parted ways now.

he feels envious about gold, knowing that there's someone out there waiting for him with open arms, would he ever get that reciprocation back? only time will tell

but now's not the time to cry over spilled milk. they had to get out of this dark cave - they still have a lot of things to do.

[a-tale-of-legends]

Silver has an awkward relationship towards Red. Cause in a way, it was Red that caused things to go down hill for Giovanni and Team Rocket. It was him that made Giovanni feel as if he needed to separate from team rocket, to get stronger, which means leaving them....and his own son. In Silver's eyes, Red took everything from him, and he kinda hates him for that. But at the same time, Red defeating team rocket is what caused Silver's whole arc really. If that never happened, Silver would grow up to be worse than how he was during the start of GSC/hgss. Silver would never view his father any differently than he did before Red: the best trainer in the world. I think Silver realizing what his father is and isn't is very important to his character, and Red kinda caused that introspection to happen, so naturally without it, Silver is stuck with what he thinks his father is,you know? So, in a way, Red indirectly leads Silver's path for the better. That doesn't make things any less awkward. Again,Red, in Silver's eyes, took everything away from him, even if that "everything" wasn't what it chalked up to be. I feel like Silver has this mix of admiration but also resentment for Red, probably in his earlier years.

Though that's just my take on how I see their dynamic going( on Silver's side, I have not talked about how Red feels about literally everything).

[ceriseisland]

what do u think of people who consider the emerald arc as the end of the manga?

like they say that its a good ending for everyones arcs, u got the big powerful blast of starters at the end and its kinda like a clean slate at the start of dppt bc no previous dexholders arrive as mentors like before until like way later in other arcs

i kinda like that idea but mostly bc hgss was mid and im an oras hater

I think most people in the fandom are more partial to the older arcs, but that's just natural. If you're asking my personal opinion, I don't think the emerald arc is a good ending to everyone's arcs. The light tone and superficiality are jarring as a followup to RS and FRLG, which I loved. I wish Kusaka had continued with the darker tone and more complex themes established in those arcs, but being a mixed bag of different kinds of stories has always been one of pokespe's strong suits imo, so I can't complain too much. If the series had ended with the emerald arc we wouldn't have DPPt and BW, both of which are great, and saying that those shouldn't have happened kinda feels like the pokespe equivalent of being a genwunner.

If you're talking about an actual drop in quality, I'd say that started in XY with the bad story structure of that arc, and SM after it falls into the same problem of having a good start but a rambling story structure. Seriously, read Creating Character Arcs by KM Weiland and tell me XY doesn't make you want to pull your hair out. XY's premise is strong enough to carry it though, and gens six and seven are pretty far removed from gen three.

Personally I'm against the idea of sequels, and I think that most stories are better off as one season/installment, but pokespe's unique way of doing things, of having multiple protagonists that change between arcs, makes it feel like you can keep bringing them back and having them still feel fresh since it doesn't overload its characters. While HGSS was kinda fun-stupid like GSC (as johto arcs are) it was fun and added to the characters, and while I dislike how it minimizes the events of RS I think there's a lot that ORAS did right (minus the salamence retcon, the bane of my existence). Honestly I think pokespe is one of the rare series where you could keep bringing these characters back and still have things to do with them, especially since getting to see them age and grow up is one of the appeals of the series, so I don't see any reason to stop reading after the emerald arc. Idk if you think pokespe ended with the emerald arc sorry you're missing out I guess

[chasingtherayquazastail]

What's a headcanon or lore drop you've desperately wanted to talk about but haven't gotten the chance to?

-@koffing-time

((eheheheheheeehehehehe you have awakened the creature

So I've been hinting at this for a while, but every blog I run goes off of the assumption that the events of each game happened on the release date of said game. The events and canons as a whole are a mishmash of events from the original releases, the remakes, a few spinoffs, and a few pick and choose pieces from the anime and manga, but the major events of each game takes place on the date the original was initially released in my brain. Importantly to my Hoennian characters, this means that the Rayquaza Crisis occurred in 2004. Going off of this timeline, Ray actually finished their badge quest and became champion a few years prior to the Rayquaza Crisis. They played a role in setting Aqua/Magma back a few years in terms of progress, but they weren't the protagonist of Emerald.

This also means that when they did their badge quest, there were a few league members who were completely different. Namely, Roxanne, Flannery, Tate and Liza, and the Elite Four's Phoebe would not have been in the positions they were in at the time of Ray's circuit. I'm kind of waffling back and forth on whether Brawly was there either, but I haven't decided one way or the other. The eigth gym also would have been headed up by Juan at the time, since Wallace still would have been training to become the leader himself. They also didn't have the luxury of the Rusturf Tunnel, which wouldn't be constructed until after their circuit, and New Mauville still would have been under construction.

This timeline also impacts Skipp in a notable way since the characters will now be about two decades older and more experienced in their roles. I'm probably not going to have any of the league members be retired since I am a firm believer in old bastards kicking ass, but it does mean that some of them may have vastly different personalities and teams, especially considering that Skipp is also going to be coming at them with non-conventional pokemon for the most part. Some minor characters may be retired or implied dead depending on their age in Emerald.

There's also my Mahogany Town headcanon which is important to Kenneth so I will give it to you too. Two for one autism dump and I already had this one written down.

So between the games and the manga the entire town is pretty much implied to have been a Team Rocket hideout long before before and during the events of GSC/HGSS with corruption running incredibly deep into the town's infrastructure. So, when Rocket was taken down, the entire town was basically gutted. For Manga Reasons that I won't spoil, it was even left without a gym leader for a while. The organized crime was gone, but the Kanto-Johto League and the Johto government both failed to provide any support to help the town get back to a sense of normalcy, instead entrusting that task entirely to the citizens and local government. The majority of these people were either indebted to Rocket, a part of Rocket, or involved in shady shit in their own right. With the majority of the underground resources gone as well as a sizable portion of the population, the town could never properly rebuild, and it became a sort of Orre situation where a lot of the residents wanted something better to become of it, but even when a new gym leader was appointed, no one really wanted to help out a former Rocket Town. So, the local government is unstable at best, law enforcement is mostly civilian vigilantism, and there's a deep sense of distrust for outside authority among the populace.

Because of this, it's sort of become the menacing cryptid town of Johto. Their Ohio or Brazil if you will. When asking online about tips on what to do while visiting Mahogany Town, the answer is usually "don't." That's not to say it's an entirely terrible place, as the citizens that remain are generally well-meant and just want to make the best with the rubble they were left with. They're wary of outsiders, and you're likely to get a cold shoulder if you're just passing through or if you're treating the place like a tourist destination, but they're generally at least tolerant.

However, there's also the fact that Kenneth is the primary reason why both Rocket and the Johto Regional Patrol have failed to set up any operations there since the events of the games. The community is pretty split on his existence, but they've all come to the common consensus that he is a necessity to keep Rocket out and the local government in line. Some people don't mind the brutality, some people do, but nobody in town hates Kenneth more than they hate Rocket.

Anyways. Bows. Enjoy the novella. Chew on it. There is more but I will keep it hush for now.))

[sometipsygnostalgic]

Reviewing Kanto Gym Leader/Elite 4 Music

Today, Tipsy is watching “All Elite 4 Soundtracks [GEN 1-9] 2022″ and she realised that not only are there an ungodly total of 4 Kanto tracks on this video, it’s also missing “Kanto Gym Leader” from Generation 2 and 4′s Johto games (because they’re not the E4 themes), which brings us to a total of six Kanto gym leader remixes in the core series alone, excluding the anime, spinoff games, or Super Smash Bros. 

Here is my review of each of them. 

Generation 1 (the original, Red/Blue/Yellow): Very high energy. I can tell that they put everything they had into this track and pushed the Gameboy to its limits. What I like about it is how victorious and yet intimidating it is, it’s a friendly intense battle. I think this track captures what makes Pokemon music good. It fits exactly what it was made for. 

For some reason, I can only find Pokeli’s edit of the theme with added Pokemon sounds. Even compilation videos like the one at the top of this post use this version. 

Generation 2 (Gold/Silver/Crystal): If the last version of this theme was intimidating but cheerful, this version scraps the cheer completely and focuses on the fight. I don’t actually like it as much as its predecessor, there’s not nearly as much energy, but it’s so hype to get to Kanto after playing through Johto and hear remixes of all your favourite tracks. I love how on some repeats, this version changes up the instruments rather than having a straight loop. Unfortunately the GSC versions of the gym leaders never scaled up with each battle, so it’s a bit forgettable. 

Generation 3 (Fire Red/Leaf Green): Heck yes, back on the bullshit with EVERYTHING HAPPENING ALL THE TIME, and it’s emphasized even more by how they seem to use every instrument available on the gameboy in this track. Because of the GBA’s sound system using compressed audio, this version actually sounds way dirtier than its Gameboy counterparts. This is also hard to listen to with how chaotic it is. However it’s all good fun, I’d say while I prefer the original, this is a good evolution of it and fits Gen 3 well. 

Generation 4 (Heart Gold/Soul Silver): Holy SHIT that intro!!! The intro is way longer than the Gold and Silver version, I’d say in general it’s a huge improvement, adding a final verse before the loop where the music is higher just like in the original before moving down to the GS low key. Like all the battle music in HGSS, this feels like a battle for your life. Again, the actual battle is not as strong as Johto gym leaders, but it’s so nostalgic, a true sequel to FRLG. This sounds much better than Gen 3′s compressed trumpets and guitar. Makes me want to pick up Soul Silver, but I need to complete Platinum again before I can touch it... 

Generation 5 (Black 2/White 2): With this gen they went back to the drawing board - rather than emphasizing the chaotic core instruments like Gen 3 and 4, instead they DE-emphasized the main tune, returned to more chiptune sounds like the original, and put the background synth in the spotlight!! That synth bar at 1:58 and 2:17? That is sex. I love this experiment. It blends in with the rest of the music in gen 5, which knocks it down a bit, but compared to the other versions of Kanto Gym Leader it’s refreshing and new. Gen 5 was going for a different sound after the designers got sick and tired of the same pseudo orchestra noises across the last two gens. 

Aaaaa??? I can’t add any more videos. T_T  

Nintendo Switch (Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee): Hell yes, now we are finally on modern technology, with the Nintendo Switch’s audio giving Game Freak the full power they need to make an Anime tribute version of the theme. That’s right, the battle music in LGPE is supposed to sound like the anime. Full orchestra, baby! With this cool guitar serving an undercurrent to the whole thing. It sounds kind of like a Xenoblade version of the theme, which means after a minute of listening my brain switches off, but I think objectively this is the easiest to listen to other than the original, because of how natural it sounds. So many layers, but none of them intrusive and irritating. 

BONUS: The original Anime theme from 1995: Dear god, this is SUCH an 80s/90s style piece of music, the progression, the “boop boop boop” synth noise, the switch to a sudden guitar solo, the constant change in instruments just like in the Gen 3 version... I think if Game Freak had the resources, they’d have made the games sound like this. It’s got that almost pseudo jazz style that they have fallen in love with in recent years. 

[otnesse]

They might be hard on Ash a few times (Misty in particular), but make no mistake, they ARE indeed very good friends (well, Misty is anyways. Not too sure about Brock, let's just say there were a few moments in the OS and AG where he did come close to selling out). For better or for worse, they ultimately HELPED Ash become the trainer he is, AND there are plenty of instances where Misty and, heck, even BROCK managed to get Ash out of a tight spot. You can't get any more of a good friend than that. Might as well point out, the Lt. Surge win was BROCK's idea, and Misty actually ATTEMPTED to offer to Ash her Pokemon to help against Brock, TWICE, and I might as well add was genuinely disappointed when Ash chose to forfeit the match over actually beating Brock, meaning she truly was hoping Ash would win. You REALLY think they'd do that if they WEREN'T good friends at all?

Besides, I'm pretty sure blindly singing praises for Ash's accomplishments would have been even WORSE for Ash in the long run (look what happened to Gaston in Disney's Beauty and the Beast due to not getting any criticism up until Belle refused him).

Had it been me writing the Indigo saga, I'd probably omit the dubious wins (well, save for the Boulder Badge and maybe Marsh Badge. Those ones I'm not too sure how to fix. Besides, at least the kindness bit sort-of works with the games going by what that monk said in GSC, and in the case of Sabrina, Ash DID technically win the match due to Kadabra being incapacitated [albeit by accident due to Haunter randomly showing up and making Sabrina laugh for the first time in years].). I even gave a potential what-if for Ash actually EARNING the Cascade Badge the right way that makes Ash AND Misty look well afterward. Don't get me wrong, Ash saving the gym was indeed commendable overall, but it's not really something to get a badge over (especially when the entire POINT of fighting and beating a Gym Leader is to prove you're qualified for a fighting tournament). Even Blaine made clear he had little patience towards people essentially getting freebie badges (that was even part of the reason why he, officially at least, shut down Cinnabar Gym).

Besides, last I checked, the conversation was predicated more towards his earning of THEIR badges, they didn't even allude to the other badges, so it was still relevant. Ash didn't mention Lt. Surge, Koga, Blaine, or even Team Rocket at Viridian when explaining the concept of badges.

#20 years later # and she’s still reminding him it was cause of pity

[quibbs126]

So I’ve been doing this today

I mentioned previously something that involved the Evoland 2 characters going to an era with GameBoy Color type graphics, and so today I was like “you know what, why don’t I edit the sprites to match that style?” Since I’ve been downloading a bunch of the game’s sprite sheets and I’ve dabbled a little in sprite editing, at least when it comes to colors (I try to color change shiny Pokémon on occasion, to make them look better)

And I used the Past era sprites because they’re the simplest and I think they’re also what’s used for the Magi era sprites, so might as well keep that trend

I put the color graph there originally so that I wouldn’t have to keep switching between canvases with the colors, but I kept it so that it’d take up more space and wouldn’t make the picture look so tiny

Though most of the colors actually don’t come from that chart, but instead this one I found on Wikipedia when I was trying to find the GBC colors

I knew I had seen the multicolored squares one before, and I was trying to look for it, but all I could find was the Wikipedia chart so I just started with that. Then I eventually found the actual colors later on via asking Google for Pokémon GSC colors, but most still come from the original chart

So one particular rule I tried to follow here was the amount of colors used per character. I don’t know if it’s actually a rule, but from what I understand from Pokémon Crystal, the sprites usually only have 4 colors, which tend to be black, white, and then two other colors. So I tried keeping that up here

Unfortunately, Kuro was like the only character where there were minimum problems, likely because his skin tone could double for the gold in his design. You reach 4 colors way too quickly when black already counts as one

Originally when I just had the Wikipedia chart, since there was only one really bright purple, Menos was a dark blue color instead (the same one used one Velvet actually), but with the new chart I made him actually purple. I also made his hand markings light blue so that you can actually see them, since his pants are now completely black, alongside his chain. The arms being black would just blend in too much

His red parts were originally going to be red, but with the 4 color rule, that meant either his eyes had to be red, or his belt and hair tie be yellow. I tried it both ways, but the red eyes looked too distracting to me, so I went with the yellow. I think it makes a better contrast anyways

Now as I state in the picture, I could not keep this up for Fina and Velvet by the end of it. I was able to combine some colors, like Fina’s outfit and Velvet’s bottom hair and browns, but there were just some that I couldn’t reuse a color for. So unfortunately, they break the rules, and have 5 colors instead of only 4. Velvet’s extra color is white by the way

Speaking of Velvet, it was originally going to be that that section would be the dark yellow like her backpack, but I wanted to try out making it red like her hair instead, and I ended up liking it more, so she’s blue and red now

I don’t have much to say on Fina other than her diverse amount of colors greatly annoyed me. Why does she have to have random red and orange

And yeah, that’s these edits I made. If anyone wants to use them, feel free, I made the picture transparent. I mean, I don’t expect that to happen, but you know, if anyone ever wants to. I could also maybe end up using the colors for like a palette challenge or something