#pokemon second evolve set

[trashworldblog]

Welp folks, looks like we're in for a hell of a season of puppet history!

*Let's crack in*

the set is gorgeous this season. i always have loved the puppet history set and how it evolves season after season. the mismatched chairs are beautiful. i love the lion and beaver and little dinos. and eagle eyed viewers may notice the brick wall came from the old pod watcher set, and watcher tv folks might have noticed the scuba lamp fella is the light they made on weird wonderful world (thanks to @toomanywatchers for pointing that one out to me!) also the new theater!! its gorgeous!! the stars light up!!! its so pretty!! incredible craftsmanship!

now why is ryan holding a ... hose (?) ready to fight someone? maybe to melt a wicked witch of the west? kill a genie? kick some hologram ass again — water is good in a fight against electronics [unless the substitute is a pokemon] — either way its a little too soon to tell but i love to throw shit at the wall and see if it will stick like molasses so maybe he's fighting dorthy ruth's shady second husband.

PS aka Puppet Safety: what seems to be a shady organization that is responsible for or is dealing with the puppets in pergatory. im assuming they arent going to be great based on the poster that i will struggle to read later, but either way, their role next season is to deal with the mess of all those dead NOT DEAD puppets in hell Wondrium Arena PERGATORY. Theyre like OSHA. but puppets.

okay now i cant read all of that but what i can make out shivers my timbers. its obvious that shit is gonna go a little crazy if theres a department. but after carefully unravelling whats in this, you guys might go nuts.

after taking it into photoshop to try to enhance it, i got this. still pretty incomprehensible, especially on the right side. but im autistic and also a bitch so i wont take no for an answer. so i zoomed in and squinted and started reading anyways. and this is what i got.

The department of puppet safety (the department) hereby unequivocally disragards any and all responsibility, liability, or .....

to the words statements, or [representations?] made on the poster....

the phrase 'everything will be [fine?]' (... referred to as 'The Substitute') The Substitute is .....

and a not to be.... or a [tactical? factual?]

it is typically noted and dictated that contrary to the ..... of the [Substitute?]

the [Poster?] ('The [Reader? Riddler? Reactor?]') is herby informed that they are....

included but not limited to an immediate and painful vaporation....

shredded by a thousand lazers that simultaneously rips your.....

the aforementioned vaporation process is depicted to appear in the [readers?]....

'pergatory' However, The department makes no....

pergatory and any assumptions by the [Reader?] regarding....

evidence. In short, pergatory may or may exist and the Department cannot be held responsible for any...

uncertainty.

By choosing to meet or otherwise engage with the Substitute the [Reader?] acknowledges and accepts....

consequences that may arise, including but not limited to their imminent vaporation, the insuing agony...

or similar unknown [means? realms?]. The [Reader] further acknowledges that they are inherently....

adverse outcomes stemming from.... The [Reader] ... responsibility and not that of The Department.

The Department futher .... any duty of care ... duty or any other obligation to protect safeguard..... of the

[Reader]. The [Reader] is advised to

have any doubts or concerns regarding the potential ramifications.

In the event that any portion of the disclaimer a ......

..... [??? which shall remain in Lil bitch and effect. ????]

By continuing to meet, ..., or otherwise engage with the Substitute the [Reader].....

and ...... and acknowledges that they have been sufficiently...

Summary: The Department of Puppet Safety takes no responsibility for the consequences of ..... the [Substitute?]

[vaporization?] and..... [afterlife?]

the brackets are for the text mush i couldnt quite make out but could make out with context clues or letters.

Disclaimer: This is a poster from The Department. The Department is trying to cover up that pergatory even exists, so accusations and information from this poster should be taken with a grain of salt.

the substitute is gonna be a player next season! yay!!

I spent a long time trying to decipher what the "Reader" actually says but the image was too compressed to make anything out besides possibly a captial R, and the first time i read it I read it as reader, so we'll go with that for now. Now, who is this mysterious reader? why is he in contact with the Substitute? I believe this reader is the mystery puppet we saw in this tease from shane a few weeks ago.

we see the reader be buddy buddy with the professor. maybe they're friends from long ago, maybe they're family, maybe they've just met. either way, he plays the key role in helping or hurting the puppets that are trapped in pergatory.

Now, is he working with the Substitute? did he just meet with them? it seems that simply contacting the substitute could lead to vaporation, and if the reader wants to help free the trapped puppets from pergatory, the substitute would be the only other puppet (besides literal god and satan) that would have any information. So the Reader could be a good guy just looking to help out and looking for information.

or he is working with the Substitute by getting buddy buddy with the professor. He learns about dorthy ruth and how she is on a mission to get her stanly melvin back from pergatory. so he, as an evil scientist that may have created the substitute, slips her a horse brain pill so that she forgets everything, even her own name, as the song above suggests.

I do find it interesting how all of my information about the reader is coming from The Department, who is basically just using the reader as a scapegoat. if the department is supposed to keep puppets safe, why are they covering this up? why are they using vaporization death penalties? what is really going on here? why is my silly puppet show slowly turning into a massive lore dump with an overbearing government that is pumping out propaganda and using scapegoats? why am i having so much fun with it and so excited to start a puppet revolution? free your felt hands from your chains!

The more I dig, all im left with is more questions. I can not wait to see what is in store for us. This has been the most fun I've ever had digging for lore. I can't wait for this season !!!! It's going to be so insane and fun.

[bogleech]

Mortasheen

Given that I think your Mortasheen page has over 700 monsters while the latest Kickstarter update said you'd have 100 included, what should we think of those not included? Are they still 'canon' to the setting? Will the whole website page need to be revamped?

The book was never meant to be a one-off project but was always planned as the introduction to an entire tabletop gaming brand meant to keep adding content every year, at least in smaller batches. Like Pokemon the goal is to release playable monsters as "generations," and they'll always be a mix of old, new, or reinvented concepts, though @gutsygills who took over a lot of essential work doesn't want to leave a single one behind and stops me from completely scrapping any unless they truly just won't work. The Mortasheen archive on bogleech.com is just there for posterity now and might never be modified again, except to add links to where people will eventually be able to buy the books or visit a more dedicated official website. I guess you could say the release of the RPG will be a "reboot," especially since a lot of aspects of its world had to evolve a little to make more cohesive sense as a game setting. I'll still share my own new monster art and concepts as I go along but some will be book exclusives while some might get released with their gameplay stats for free, it'll vary with the monster. This is supposed to be basically my new job from here on out, it may be an independent project but it's being run as a serious business endeavor in partnership with the gameplay devs.

Here's one new monster I did for this first book though, its name is Pestode and it was designed to be the most basic common Wormbrain class monster, the Rattata of Wormbrains, just a large deadly parasitic worm whose "host" is reduced to barely more than a second skin it can contract into. Every monster also has a "retro sprite" from an imaginary nonexistent gameboy game and in many cases I'm using that to show a monster's other possible poses or configurations; Pestode can scrunch up like a frog if it wants

[adobe-outdesign]

Please review Koffing and Weezing (Galarian form included) if you haven't already! :)

Koffing is a pretty neat concept. It's similar to the Grimer line in that it's kind of pollution personified, but instead of being more slime and sewage-like, Koffing is based off of poisonous gasses. It's more or less just a balloon that can kill you, but unfortunately the semi-transparent, inflatable skin is completely lost in basically all of its art and animations, making it look more like a floating boulder. Still, it's a decent, straightforward concept.

Visually it's also pretty neat; the simple round body has some of that nice Gen 1 organic-ness with the craters everywhere, and the fans are an unexpected but welcome addition. The skull-and-crossbones on the body is a little blunt, but it works, mostly because they managed to render it in a way where it's still believable as just a set of markings.

Weezing almost falls into the "just multiply it" trap of Gen 1, but thankfully it manages to be more unique than that. First, the faces have changed to have some big ol' brows and larger fangs along with flat upper teeth. The lip is also more defined, and the markings have gotten bigger.

More importantly, however, is that the second head is fused directly with the main body. This makes sense for two gaseous creatures, and gives it an extra deformed look, especially with the third "joint" in the back. The second head is also different from the first, having only a ring instead of a full skull and one set of upper fangs, which keeps it from feeling like the same creature that's been copied and pasted.

In Galar, regular Koffing evolves directly into Galarian Weezing here. It does feel a little abrupt, but at the same time a G. Koffing probably would've been a repeat of the same elements, so it's not exactly a big deal to not even bother.

G. Weezing plays with the original pollution concept by giving them top hats and mustaches resembling that of Victorian-era oil and coal tycoons. The top hats then double as smoke stacks (the creators have also said they're based on steam engines, though I don't personally get that as much), allowing polluted air to be taken in, purified, and released out the top. The palette is also different, swapping out purple for steel-like dark grey with green accents (for the polluted air) and white (for the clean air). This gives the design some good contrast and makes it pop a little more than the original.

For the most part this is a pretty decent idea that makes sense for the region, giving the thick smog that's blanked areas like London in the past, and ties back into the original Pokemon nicely. However, I do think it's maybe a little too on-the-nose? Like I said, the skull-and-crossbones thing works because it was integrated in a way that feels natural, and these designs don't as much. Maybe if the mustaches were less obvious or the hats didn't have a clear brim to them. It's not a huge deal though, and it mostly depends how much you like the more character-based designs.

My only other issue is that it kind of feels a little contradictory conceptually—like they're based off of industrial capitalists and smog, but then also they... clean the air they intake, to the point that they're part fairy-type? Like it feels like the pollution-causing Victorian capitalist theme and the inverted regional that cleans the air instead of polluting it are two separate concepts that both loose a little something when smushed together. Once again not a big deal, but something that's always just low-key bugged me.

Anyway, a pretty solid line as a whole. The concept for the originals is strong and both stages feel unique, and the designs are solid as well. The regional is also good conceptually and visually, albeit maybe a little too complex for its own good.

[pokemon-card-of-the-day]

Okay here's round 2 of cards I like, now for more recent sets (yes, to me BW is modern, help I'm old)

Eelektrik was a very useful way to accelerate... But really it's here because they decided to make an evolving Stage 1 good on its own. It's not like this never happens (recently we had Flaaffy and now, to an extent, there's Metang) but Eelektrik being chosen was a cool moment at the time.

The best fluff. At a time where big Legendary Pokemon-EX did most of the work, this thing could actually hold its own. It was also fun because you kept discarding things and ran like 25 Pokemon at a time where 10 or fewer was very normal.

They went with evolution line theme art here. Probably one of the coolest things they've done with card art.

The idea here was of a Stadium that worked differently for each player, and whoever had the card got to pick which side went where. A fun idea for sure, though one they didn't keep for long.

Look at this thing. It has 60 HP and 10 base damage. Oh, right, its damage scaled up quickly... So basically we had a good, competitive deck with a 60 HP attacker that damaged itself on purpose when a lot of other things were over 250. And it worked.

I once took this to a local tournament and had a winning record. I might be biased because Castform but it was fun as hell to play. You got to use whatever Stadium you wanted to mess with the opponent and discard all over the place. Lost to a turn 1 Cramorant there, though.

I like the Supporters that let you choose what to do, and this was cool in the V era as drawing or forcing a V into play. Much less cool now. And yes, it went well in Castform.

Welcome to modern funny gimmick! Pair this with Forretress ex. Blow up a ton, fall way behind. Your second Brambleghast will have 350 HP and a ton of Energy, and you flip your way to a win. Or probably not, but if you're playing this you really don't care much about the result. It's just hilarious. Add Hero's Cape for even funnier results.

I could most likely find more but I think this will do, there's so many interesting cards out there I probably missed.

[pokemon-ash-aus]

What’s your advice for someone planning to 100% the Pokédex in older games?

Catch the pokemon the MOMENT you find them, dont try to skip over.

You may need to rehunt certain areas and its a pain when you have over 50 pokemon in the same area.

When evolving, use at least 1 slot dedicated to only evolving as the journey progresses. Esp if you have EXP share. If not, set that pokemon in the front and then switch out to a stronger pokemon right after.

Daycare is your friend for evolving pokemon that take longer. Magikarp being the forfront on my mind.

Greatballs are your friend, Ultra Balls are nice but expensive in comparison. Greatballs have a higher capture rate than a Pokeball.

Paralysis is always good, but if you can't Sleep is your second best friend. Dont use poison cause you WILL be battling against a timer.

Good luck!

[kafus]

i did some ridiculous technical BS in pokemon again

NOTE: not only is this post a very very long infodump from yours truly, it is also specifically an infodump involving a lot of pokemon glitches and exploits. even though i don't tamper with my games and everything achieved here can be done on original hardware with no hacking or what-have-you, some people still may consider this Cheating based on their own personal standards of legitimate gameplay. i ask that you please don't try to start arguments with me about pokemon legality and just take it all as an interesting technical infodump about gen 3 pokemon okay thank you <3

SO. i decided that before pokemon bank eventually shuts down one day in the probably-not-so-distant future and makes old gen transfer impossible, i need more ribbon master pokemon (AKA a pokemon with all the ribbons it can possibly receive from its gen of origin to the most recent gen it can transfer to) from gens 3 and 4. i've been meaning to ribbon master a pokemon from gen 3 based on my favorite singer, KAF (you don't need to know anything about kaf for this story whatsoever but you should check her out LMAO) and while musing over what pokemon would suit her best, it came to me.

FARIGIRAF IS JUST KAF'S FURSONA!! the monster teeth hoodie with the eyes. even has the dangly bits. like come on it's perfect. AND girafarig is obviously available in gen 3 so i could RM a kaf girafarig and then evolve her once i got to SV. Cool! Awesome! but here's the problem. I CAN'T SETTLE FOR JUST A NORMAL GIRAFARIG. I HAVE TO GO ALL OUT!!

i started brainstorming my ideal gen 3 kaf girafarig, and came to the following conclusions:

i obviously want the girafarig to be shiny. i mean come on

i want her to be a girl for obvious reasons, and gentle nature to match her personality. just because Armor Tail is better on Farigiraf i also want it to have girafarig's second ability, Early Bird. i'm not concerned with IVs because i think random IVs add flavor and that would add more tedium than i was already dealing with

i want her to be japanese language origin since kaf is a japanese singer (i can nickname her かふ that way too!)

i want the original trainer (OT) name to be PPさん (PP-san) in reference to the person who scouted out kaf's talent in the first place - he goes by Piedpiper online and my friends and i call him PP as a joke sometimes

i want the trainer ID to be 02018 because 2018 is kaf's debut year

since girafarig only spawns in gen 3 in the ruby/sapphire/emerald safari zone, i wanted to hatch a girafarig egg in firered/leafgreen for the kanto origin, which is impossible otherwise. FRLG are also really important games to me, leafgreen being the first pokemon game i ever owned or played, so that's a bonus

now you may be looking at this entire list and being like. What the fuck. how do you intend to shiny hunt girafarig with all of these hyperspecific parameters, especially in FRLG where the everstone passing nature doesn't exist and flame body doesn't even exist to hatch eggs faster. you will be doing that long after bank shuts down. and you're intending on doing this on original hardware too??? WELL. that's where ACE and RNG manipulation comes in babey. i am GOING to attempt to make this comprehensible even if you've never touched ACE or RNG manip in your life, even tangentially, but sorry if this is a bit of a mess it's pretty technical LOL. the rest of this post is going below a cut cause it Goes Places!!

ACE and RNG manipulation explained (kinda)

first off a quick overview of ACE, ACE stands for arbitrary code execution, which is the ability to run your own (arbitrary!) code within the game. this can be set up with a series of elaborate glitches, that break open the gen 3 pokemon games into letting you run your PC box names as code, enabling you to do pretty much anything you want. to be upfront, i'm not an expert on ACE - i understand it in an overarching conceptual sense and am able to follow ACE guides just fine, but i cannot write my own ACE code, which essentially requires you to know some GBA assembly. doesn't really matter for the purpose of this story though.

you can see an example of a tiny snippet of a larger ACE code with the PC box name below. it looks like gibberish but that's because every character used in the name corresponds to a specific internal value, which when all run together, is code!

i need ACE in FRLG because resetting for, or RNG manipulating (more on that in a moment), trainer ID (and secret ID, also more on that later) is pretty much impossible. ACE will allow me to change my TID to 02018 by essentially just telling the game to do so with my PC boxes. this requires me to set up ACE in emerald first since that's the only game with a viable entrypoint, and then use emerald ACE to make glitch pokemon that can activate ACE in FRLG when traded over.

as for RNG manipulation, that's a bit more straightforward, especially if you've ever watched a speedrun of... pretty much anything with random chance in it. games with random chance are not actually fully random because computers can't really be fully random, and in the older pokemon games with unencrypted and less advanced RNG (random number generator) algorithms, this is pretty easy to exploit.

this is a heavy simplification, but whenever you encounter a wild pokemon in RSE or FRLG, the amount of frames that have passed since the game was turned on are compared to a number that was generated upon boot, called the RNG seed. if you've ever played minecraft you can compare this to world seeds - the pokemon RNG seed determines all possible wild encounters in that play session in a similar fashion as minecraft determining the infinite terrain layout. this comparison determines every aspect of an encountered pokemon; its species, nature, IVs, and so on. so, if you were able to time your wild encounter (or any other type of pokemon encounter) down to the 1/60th of a second frame, you can get the game to spit out whatever pokemon you want at you! you just need a bit of typically invisible information first - the RNG seed, and if you're RNGing a shiny, your secret ID aka SID, which is like an invisible second trainer ID generated alongside your TID that is paired up with the TID and compared against any pokemon you encounter to determine if it should be shiny or not. both of these things can be figured out without hacking or tampering with games/save files.

the most common program used for all things RNG manipulation is called pokefinder and you can see an example of it spitting out what shinies are available on hoenn's first route in the first 100000 frames of the game being on with an RNG seed of 0 and my old TID/SID combo below. it's pretty damn cool to me tbh, i love RNG manipulation and i'm way more versed on it/experienced than i am with ACE

TLDR; rng manipulation is essentially a frame perfect, speedrunning-adjacent trick to get the game to roll the RNG in your favor, including for perfect IVs or shininess. for reasons that will become clear later, this is much easier to do in emerald than any other gen 3 game, so i will be using emerald for the RNG manipulation of the girafarig egg

with ALL of that context out of the way, this was the gameplan:

play through a fresh file of japanese firered (i don't own japanese leafgreen, RIP) all the way through the postgame to unlock trading with hoenn with the name PPさん, not worrying about TID for now. the guide i was following did not have a code for changing name with ACE in japanese FRLG specifically, so i figured playing the game again real quick would be a better alternative to trying to teach myself assembly in an afternoon LOL

set up ACE in my new emerald file i completed recently

use ACE in emerald to generate the glitch pokemon needed to run ACE in FRLG and trade them over. finalize the setup process over in FRLG too

look up possible gentle, ability 2, female, and shiny egg frames, and pick one that looks good to RNG manipulate in emerald, noting its PID (an encounter-specific ID number, pretty much)

figure out what SID, when combined with a TID of 02018, will cause that egg frame to be shiny - that way when the egg is traded over and hatched in firered, it will be shiny

do the RNG in emerald, trade over the to-be-shiny egg to firered, and hatch it after changing the TID/SID with ACE appropriately!! bam female, gentle, early bird, shiny, JP origin girafarig with an OT of PPさん and a visible TID of 02018. Pog!!

to execute that gameplan would take me an entire day, though...

step 1: play through firered

ok gonna be honest this is the ONE part of this entire process that i did not play on original hardware. i wanted to get to the Cool Parts of this process so i decided to play through firered on emulator. absolutely terrible picture sorry but i do actually own japanese firered, so i could dump the game legally to my computer to use speedup in mGBA with a little device called the Joey JR which connects the cart to my computer by USB like so

after that it was pretty much a relatively normal playthrough but obviously with emulator speedup. i used solely my starter blastoise to, well, blast through the rest of the game LMAO. after just a couple of hours or so i was right before the elite four, which i completed while in the car after moving the save file back to my cartridge with the same device, since i had to leave the house to go to a doctor appointment. i tried to take pictures of me beating the game but the sun was not doing the photos any favors lol. blastoise ended up being level 76 by the end. was easy with surf and an ice beam TM from the game corner (i just bought the coins)

unfortunately beating the game isn't the only requirement for trading with the hoenn games, so i also had to complete the whole sevii islands postgame quest... which required me to have 60 registered owned entries in the pokedex, which i wasn't really doing while speeding through the game initially, so i had a lot of mons to catch. i was still out of the house at this point (and playing at normal speed lol) so i wasn't really taking pictures, but i did make a stop at the power plant to look for an electabuzz despite it being an inefficient 5% since i needed a spare anyways for my leafgreen file unrelated to this story lmao. took a pic of it since it took a while to show up. anyway soon enough the dex had 60+ entries! i've played FRLG so many times that the encounter locations are memorized in my mind... i did all of this with no googling asdfkasfd

at this point i got home and was able to do the ruby/sapphire postgame quest on emulator with speedup again, so it was pretty easy. moved the save back to cart and i was done with step 1! obviously this didn't actually take me 21 hours of playtime, that was the emulator speedup's fault loool. from here on out i didn't touch any emulators again!

step 2: set up ACE in emerald

ACE time! i've actually set up ACE in an old emerald file before but i wanted to do it again fresh. i was following a guide pretty much to a T so i'm actually going to skip over the details of some of the steps since you can read about those more in depth over at the guide i was using if you want

TLDR; you have to trade for the NPC trade pokemon, DOTS the seedot and PLUSES the plusle, then EV train DOTS a specific way. these EV values cause DOTS to turn into a glitch pokemon egg 0x0611 when corrupted with the pomeg glitch (more on that in a bit), which, when hatched, runs the PC box names as code, aka ACE! why does it work? if you really want to know, there's plenty of stuff online about it, i'm not the best person to ask haha

it's worth noting that volbeat is really annoying to capture in emerald as it's literally only available as a 1% in one patch of grass, so i caught an illumise instead and bred them until a volbeat hatched lol. was much more efficient

also lol "Take good care of DOTS!" sorry i will be corrupting your son into demonspawn that lets me wield godlike control over your universe

after getting the necessary NPC trade pokemon all ready and moving them into a specific pattern in box 2 (i cloned them with the emerald tower cloning glitch) i had to perform the pomeg glitch. this involves using a pomeg berry to decrease a pokemon's health to 0 without causing a whiteout. this is achieved by getting a pokemon with at least 8 HP EVs to 1 HP and then using the pomeg berry on it, decreasing the EVs and taking off a point of health in the process (it's slightly more steps than this but whatever). i decided to use the camerupt i had during my playthrough of the game for this purpose. just took him to fiery path to get poisoned and walked until he was on 1 HP and healed him with an antidote lol

by doing the pomeg glitch and entering a wild battle, the game gets a bit confused since all the pokemon in your party are fainted and just sends out some sort of glitch decamark pokemon. in this situation, after viewing my camerupt's summary in battle and exiting back out of the summary screen, i was able to corrupt the DOTS and PLUSES sitting in my PC by scrolling up above the usual limit of the party menu, which reaches into data used by the first two PC boxes and fucks them up, ending up with, assuming that i EV trained correctly, a glitched egg that is about to hatch in a nest ball named DOTS with pokerus. this will run ACE when hatched! (if you want more info on this corruption pomeg stuff, check out the bulbapedia article for glitzer popping. yes that's what they named it)

step 3: use emerald ACE to set up firered ACE

so once again you can find a lot more detail on this process over at the guide i was using, but the TLDR of the matter was, i needed to put a bunch of codes into my PC box names to generate a few different glitch mons. specifically, i needed a egg that would hatch into a crobat (yes, fully evolved lol) with a singular glitched out move, that when used in battle in firered, would cause ACE to happen similar to how hatching the corrupted DOTS egg causes ACE to happen in emerald. i also needed a specific buggy shiny umbreon and a very strange glitchy egg.

even though this step was mostly a lot of tedious typing on the gen 3 keyboard (+ i had to redo things once because i made a typo at one point in the process LOL) it was so much fun! the game breaks in so many ways that you would just... never see during normal gameplay and it makes for some really good pictures and whatnot

first of all, when you hatch the 0x0611 egg, it hatches into a decamark of varying colors, in the case of the picture below it's almost imperceptible because the whole sprite is just a black circle, blending in with the background (sorry for the quality on this one, it's a screencap of a video clip i took).

additionally, trying to scroll over the hatched decamark in the PC or viewing its summary screen will crash the game, so to get rid of it, it has to be moved to the front of your party in the party menu, and then you go to the PC to release it through the deposit menu. since the cursor just defaults to the first position of the party and you don't have to scroll over to it, it's possible to release it from here.

oh yes and the umbreon/other glitch egg? similarly screwy - actually after generating them, their sprites are glitched out until you reset the game, so they look like this. behold their nonsense summaries:

after i had all i needed to trade to FRLG, i cloned an extra set of them with the emerald tower glitch again just in case i messed something up and got to trading! here's me receiving them on the firered side:

and last but not least, i'm a little obsessed with the way the glitch move looks in FRLG on the hatched crobat, absolute nonsense:

i finalized setting up the FRLG ACE (check out the guide i linked earlier for more info) and put everything into their proper positions, but before i could actually execute any code... i needed to know what SID i was going for!

step 4 + 5: look up potential egg frames in emerald and find an SID

soo now for looking at potential girafarig eggs. instead of using the program pokefinder which i mentioned earlier, i used a program called pokenav egg rng tool, which is exactly what it sounds like, a tool specialized for rng manipulating eggs with the pokenav in emerald. using it, i was quickly able to generate a whole list of gentle, female, ability 2 (early bird) eggs, and i picked one that was around 1300 frames in since that made for quick resetting attempts, but not so quick that i could barely make my inputs in time. the one i picked was frame 1381. with a TID of 02018, the PID D2C5EF55 would be shiny with an SID of 14962, so i noted that for later in firered. (i figured this out using an old program called RNG Reporter which is what i'm familiar with but i don't recommend using lmao. it's the "Pandora's Box" feature of that software though if you happen to look it up)

i won't make an entire guide on how to do emerald egg RNG here because it's a lot of steps, but i might at some point because the most up to date method isn't super well documented. anyways, here's a very paraphrased version of the process (this is also assuming that you aren't dealing with "redraws", which i wasn't... like i said very paraphrased):

get a pokemon with the ability lightningrod in the front of your party (i used electrike) to make pokenav calls happen more frequently, and a pokemon with flame body or magma armor (i used slugma) to make eggs hatch faster

get a male and a female of the pokemon you want to hatch, in my case girafarig. if you were RNGing IVs, the parent's IVs would be relevant, but i am not RNGing IVs so i didn't care and just caught the first girafarig i could in the safari zone

an egg is attempted to be generated every 255 steps after the parents are deposited in the daycare together, so by timing the usage of a max repel in such a way, it's easy to save the game exactly 10 steps before an egg is generated. do this

using a timer such as eontimer, soft reset and try to take that last 10th step on your target frame. this will also trigger a pokenav call (or lack thereof) and by looking for the phone call you got in the call column of the egg rng tool and whether or not an egg generated at the daycare, you can tell what frame you hit. didn't hit your target? just soft reset and try again, calibrating the timer for your own human error. this can take a while since the timing is precise to 1/60th of a second

once you hit your target frame, woohoo you did it just take the egg and hatch it! if you're RNGing IVs you would actually save before taking the egg and then RNG the IVs separately but that's a whole different thing i'm not explaining here since i wasn't RNGing IVs

i've avoided mentioning it this entire time till now, but emerald is particularly easy to do rng manipulation in because due to a programming error, the rng seed is always 0 - all encounters are predictable and you don't have to dedicate a frame perfect input to getting the right seed, making emerald rng a matter of one frame perfect input instead of two (there ARE ways to get emerald to generate a proper rng seed but that's unrelated here). additionally, its pokenav system means you can see if you got the right egg BEFORE taking it and hatching it... doing egg RNG in any other gen 3 game is basically a death sentence due to multiple untelegraphed frame perfect inputs that have to be executed in a row, plus really long wait times due to hatching eggs on a slower bike without flame body. there's a reason i was not doing this on four island in frlg.

but yeah now i knew what egg frame i was going for and was all prepared to do the RNG, so now it was onto actually executing it all:

step 6: getting kaf girafarig babey!!

before doing the RNG manipulation in emerald, i needed to change my SID and TID in firered finally! this required me to run two different codes, one for SID and one for TID. it was actually pretty painless since the code is nearly identical for both, you just swap out the values of each ID and one character changes in one box name to decide whether you're changing TID or SID. you can find the list of codes i was referencing here.

i was saving my one allotted video clip in this post for changing the TID with the glitched crobat move though because LMAO

^ shoutout to my qpp @/spikyearr for this one i fucking chokedSKFDDSFK

anyway, after doing that i went through the process of the egg rng in emerald (unfortunately no pictures because it's kind of hard to take pics mid-rng) and actually saved before taking the egg so that i'd be able to soft reset after hatching it - i just needed to check to make sure it was gentle and everything, and then i could soft reset, take the egg again, bike around to decrease the egg cycles in emerald since hatching in firered is super slow, and then trade it off before hatching it to go be hatched in firered. i knew it wouldn't be shiny in emerald, so i wasn't concerned with that. it only took 40 or so minutes of attempts before i got her!

and then AT LAST after spending my ENTIRE DAY ON THIS SHIT (like 10x the amount of time on the ACE stuff for the TID instead of the actual RNG itself LOOOL) i just had to trade the egg to firered and hatch it and i was golden!!!!! AAAGH here she is next to my kaf plushies!!!

also a picture of her summary screen after being traded to my english leafgreen!! i am assuming this will be easier to read for most of the people reading this post LOL

THAT'S IT. POST OVER THIS WAS SO LONG. IF YOU MADE IT THROUGH MY RAMBLING GOOD JOB. I HIT THE PHOTO LIMIT HELP ME

anyways yeah i'm gonna be ribbon mastering her and idk i might post about the process as i go. not immediately though i have a platinum playthrough to finish teehee. also if any of this was interesting to you i highly recommend trying out RNG manipulation, it's a really fun way to play pokemon games! gen 5, BW specifically and not their sequels, is REALLY beginner friendly for RNG manipulation as the timing is a lot less precise. check it out, there's plenty of guides online!!

[rudeboimonster]

hey. hey. pokemon oc haver

or just oc haver. I have a prompt for you. imagine your oc in pokemon masters >:3

If your OC was in Pokemon Masters, tell me:

who their pokemon partner would be

what role they would be (strike/support/tech/field/sprint)

what tags they would have (ill grab the list in a sec - normally 1 for region or town they're from, 1 for type specialty, 2-3 for characteristics/character traits)

what could their trainer lodge partner be (aka, second partner pokemon)

what would their summer outfit, halloween outfit, new years, valentines, or other event outfit be like? :)

are there any trainers they have special voice lines with when they are added to a team/win a battle when theyre on a team with a specific trainer?

Explanation of roles: (copy pasted from bulbapedia)

Strike sync pairs, which are focused on attacking. Support sync pairs, which are focused on defending, healing HP, and increasing stats of the whole team. Tech sync pairs, which are focused on disrupting the opponents, such as lowering their stats and inflicting status conditions. Sprint sync pairs, which are focused on attacking fast and reducing the sync move countdown. Field sync pairs, which are focused on setting up field effects.

tags (real term was themed skills whoops): https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Theme_skill

IE here's it filled out for Aste!

-Main: H. Typhlosion (tech, burn & flinch causer) Sinnoh, Ghost tech, Masked, Researcher -Lodge: Trubbish/Garbodor (evolvable, shiny) (tech, poison & flinch causer) Unova, Poison tech, Masked, Researcher --Summer: Jangmo-o/Kommo-o (evolvable) (support, stat raiser) -- tbh i have some ideas brewing for their summer outfit but i'll say this: their mask is replaced with a snorkel. ... oh i have to think up a fun replacement for their cane omg (im going to draw this later) Unova, Dragon support, Nature Lover --Halloween: Porygon Z (sprint, trick room?) -- ball jointed doll esque frankenstein. Cane is decorated either like a giant bolt or maybe a lantern holder? Unova, Normal sprint, Supernatural Would have voicelines with: Ingo, Emmet, Irida, Allister, Akari & Rei, [lots of friends' ocs] (I have some of the voice lines figured out but anxious to share them bc. anxious about sharing Aste in general)

[trelinha9]

Can we talk about the fact that the base forms for both of Amethio's pokemon are some of the cutest and most adorable pokemon out there?

And it's also interesting to me that some dex entries for Rookidee and Charcadet remind me a lot of Amethio.

Rookidee's Sword dex entry states:

"It will bravely challenge any opponent, no matter how powerful. This Pokémon benefits from every battle—even a defeat increases its strength a bit"

Which reminds me a lot of how he challenged Rayquaza alone with just two Pokémon without blinking. It was very reckless of him, and Ceruledge paid the price. And after his defeat, he (we assume, because for some reason we DIDN'T SEE IT) started training a lot so he could have a chance next time.

And Charcadet's Scarlet entry says:

"Burnt charcoal came to life and became a Pokémon. Possessing a fiery fighting spirit, Charcadet will battle even tough opponents"

Which makes a lot of sense and also reminds me a lot of Amethio. Amethio certainly faced very strong opponents (Friede, Moltres, Rayquaza and even Hamber), but so did Ceruledge. They face the challenges that appear before them together and united, and it is very obvious that Ceruledge cares a lot about Amethio and is extremely loyal to him. Which brings us to:

ARMAROUGE'S Scarlet dex entry, that states:

"Armarouge evolved through the use of a set of armor that belonged to a distinguished warrior. This Pokémon is incredibly loyal"

Among Armarouge and Ceruledge's dex entries, this is the only one that mentions either of them being extremely loyal. The entries for Ceruledge say:

"The fiery blades on its arms burn fiercely with the lingering resentment of a sword wielder who fell before accomplishing their goal"

"An old set of armor steeped in grudges caused this Pokémon’s evolution. Ceruledge cuts its enemies to pieces without mercy"

While the first entry may be a parallel to how Amethio wants to get stronger and capture Rayquaza before the other Explorers after failing his mission, the second entry (from Pokémon Violet) is basically the opposite of how Amethio's Ceruledge behaves. Ceruledge seems to be described as a dark Pokémon that ambushes its enemies and plays dirty to achieve its goals, but Amethio's Ceruledge behaves exactly the opposite of that! The truth is that this description fits Spinel more than any other Horizons character so far.

The only time we've seen Ceruledge disobey Amethio so far was in the battle against Hamber. Amethio ordered Amethio to dodge Dusknoir's Shadow Ball, but Ceruledge cut it in half. Why that? Because if he had dodged it, the attack would have hit the area where Ametio was and could have hurt him! Ceruledge always obeys Amethio, but when the situation is to obey Amethio and complete the mission with the consequence that Amethio's safety is at risk, Ceruledge will choose to protect Amethio, even if it means disobeying. Ceruledge's loyalty is to Amethio, not the Explorers.

Also, a little bonus:

Rookidee's Violet dex entry says:

"The females are fussier than the males. If another creature dirties a female Rookidee’s wings, it’ll peck the offender relentlessly in a burning rage"

I'm mentioning this... because it's adorable, and I really want Amethio's Corviknight to be a female because of this entry :3

So, basically: I need more young Amethio with Charcadet and Rookidee fanart

[alolanrain]

Ash’s Pokémon the TA!au are quite different then their normal counter parts, and what I mean by this is that if you put the TA!Pokemon to the same evolution of itself its very clear that the Pokémon in Ash’s care evolved different.

Charizard has grown a lot more than just physical prowess in the Characific Valley. It’s also height, weight, and physical features. He gains small spikes down his spine that are just big enough to make it uncomfortable for people to ride him without a custom saddle. He also gains an outline made out of black scales along his eyes, claws and the a good chunk of the top of his tail. Charizard is also the one out three of Ash’s fully evolved Pokémon to continue evolving in small but noticeable ways, leaving Rowan and the Pokemon scientific field as a whole to believe that Ash’s Chairzard may be able to evolve into a whole new evolution if given enough time.

Leavanny gains a second set of arms during her final evolution along with being bigger and stronger. The second set are smaller than her main set of arms and are located closer together in the front of her body. She uses them to hold her leafy projects in place better as her main arms work her sticky string into it.

There are obvious outliers like Gengar and Dragonite as they weren’t apart of Ash’s team when pre-evolved in Gengar case and or haven’t had time to properly soak up the weird energy that radiates off of both Ash and Pikachu to gain the extra abilities and body parts in Dragonites case.

[vickyvicarious]

I so badly need to play this hack rom of pokemon where you play through a pokemon version of the story of the dracula novel and where you kill him with the power of love and violence

Pfft, it would be really fun I admit.

okay now we got to pick the pokemon the other characters would be

Admittedly I'm not the best at this. Also confining it to the first couple generations (mostly 1-3), as that was what my dream was set in and also the ones I know best (though I still heavily consulted Serebii for this). But here's kind of what I'm thinking for the team...

Jonathan (THE): already assigned, with art and everything! Shiny Magikarp, later evolves into a white Gyarados. As a bonus, the Sapphire description reminds me of him in the castle too: "MAGIKARP is virtually useless in battle as it can only splash around. As a result, it is considered to be weak. However, it is actually a very hardy POKéMON that can survive in any body of water no matter how polluted it is."

Mina (POWER): Despite the name suggesting Fighting-type, I really wanted to do Psychic because that's what makes sense for her. I thought about the Gothita line but not only are they not present until Gen 5, but the descriptions don't fit her as well. I also liked the idea of the Ralts line particularly as Gardevoir has text about knowing the future and sacrificing itself for its trainer. But I think overall I prefer Eevee at the start (super adaptable and interested in lots of things)... and then teetering on the edge between Umbreon and Espeon near the later stages before finally evolving into Espeon just in time. We get the affection+daytime evolution which seems fitting for her, and again the description emphasizes Espeon's loyalty which also works well.

Jack (OF): Got so stuck on this one. I was drawn to mostly Electric or Bug types, but nothing stuck out to me as perfect. Venonat line is kind of fun. Nocturnal is a nod to his poor sleeping habits, big eyes because he's always looking and noticing stuff... Still not so sure on for him.

Arthur (LOVE): So I obviously want a dog. And I think Normal-type fits him. But there are no Normal-type dogs until gen 5. I thought about going with either a different type or an earlier dog pokemon, but honestly I think the Lillipup line works for Arthur too well so I'll break pattern and pick that. The whole line is about herding dogs who want to help keep other pokemon safe and I think that really suits him. Plus, moves such as Helping Hand where he boosts another pokemon's abilities, or Odor Sleuth that allow a Ghost-type to be hit with Normal/Fighting moves are perfect for him. That said, my second choice is Growlithe because they're also dogs who can have those moves, and are friendly/loyal with a good sense of smell that can pick up emotions. I just think the Fire-type and the Arcanine are a little less of an overall match.

Quincey (AND): He's generally quick to act and observant, so I was thinking some kind of bird for him, maybe. I like Ground-types for cowboy vibes but I think overall Pidgey line fits best for him. Quick, alert, large territory, beautiful plumage, a classic. I kind of feel like both he and Arthur would already be on their second evolution when you catch them, so he'd be a Pidgeotto already.

Van Helsing (VIOLENCE): The first thing I did was look up who can use Confusion or Supersonic, haha. I did consider Abra line but other than the super high intellect of Alakazam I don't think it fits best. And honestly... I know it's kind of a weird choice but weirdness itself feels fitting for him: I almost picked Lickitung. Abilities being Oblivious or Own Tempo works, the whole 'licking everything new to memorize it' kinda could go along with him having a million degress, and some of the moves work pretty well. Supersonic, Knock Off, Wrap, Disable, Refresh... I think overall I might lean towards Mr. Mime, though. Also an odd one, but the description mentions its ability to convince people of imaginary things which then become real and that seems fitting for him. Also the various Barrier/Light Screen type moves make sense for him always warding away vampires, and he's got Confusion and Double Slap too. Him being personally weak to Dark/Ghost types might make sense in some parts and make others more difficult, admittedly.

That's the best I've got for them all, at least! Feel free to suggest others if you like.

When you get them:

At the end:

[ecargmura]

Pokemon Horizons Episode 53 Review - How To Annihilape The Conflict

Man, last week and this week’s episodes were back-to-back greatness! I really liked this one from how it started to how the conflict was resolved. What’s cool is that the plot of this episode was due to something Ryme had said to Roy last episode, so they decided to check it out for a report! Best of all, it’s a Hatenna-focused episode!

I love that the plot of this episode is a bit of continuity. Last episode, Ryme had told Roy about the mysterious “one not of this world” in the forest, so the kids decide to search for it as it is potential report material! I love that all three of them are eager to look for it! It shows that they get along very well! Their teamwork is impeccable in this episode. They eventually meet three kids who look very similar to them, practically doppelgängers. I know that people speculate that they’re alternate reality versions of the main trio, but they’re not; they’re just lookalikes who happen to be taking the Terastal Course like they are. However, what’s clever is that their similarities to the main trio is the cause of conflict.

The mysterious figure in the forest happens to be an Annihilape. It lives with a group of Mankey and Primape who are very upset that the vine they use to swing over to their food source have been cut. It’s actually due to the Liko lookalike who tore a piece of vine to fix her bag strap. Since the three look so similar to the main group and even have similar looking Pokemon, the wild Pokemon believe they were the culprit. There is a saying that those who meet their doppelgängers will have an unfortunate end. While nothing too tragic happens to the kids, they did have to resolve the conflict because of their lookalikes. Meanwhile, there are several Primapes that look identical to each other and they kept fighting until they evolved into Annihilape. The game Pokedex entry says that Annihilape came to be because Primape was too angry to die. Yes, folks, we have confirmed death in Pokemon—or, at least it could be taken that way.

I do like how involved the group’s Pokemon are in this episode. While their starters do their fair share of battling, they also use the second Pokemon to help out the Mankey herd. Dot uses Tinkatink to help create a bridge for the herd to cross and climb to get to their food. Roy uses Kilowattrel to cross the lake and complete the bridge. However, the star of this episode was Liko’s Hatenna who had more involvement other than helping out with the bridge. She was trying to resolve the Mankey’s herd’s conflict and when the Primape turned into Annihilape and started fighting with each other, their excessive anger caused Hatenna to evolve into Hattrem and she violently stopped their fight by using Brutal Swing. As they are Ghost types, the attack seemed to be super effective as all three are knocked out with a swing each. After they calmed down, Hattrem used Heal Pulse to heal them. Hattrem is setting herself to be a very violent healer and I’d love for this to be a thing.

The saddest thing about this episode is that Hattrem can no longer fit inside Liko’s hoodie. That’s quite unfortunate for her as she always loved being inside the hood as a Hatenna. She has to be a big girl now. Other than that, I think this was an excellent way to help progress with Hattrem’s character as she is an empath like Liko. I can’t wait to see what future episodes hold in store for Hattrem now that she is capable of fighting. Right now, Liko is the only one with two middle-staged evolutions and Roy has one fully evolved Pokemon. Dot is lagging behind in terms of evolution, but it makes sense as she became a trainer later than the other two. I feel like Quaxly might evolve first and then Tinkatink. I also have this feeling that Fuecoco might evolve soon too. What do you think about this episode and what are your predictions for evolution timing?

[crystalelemental]

When I was a child, there was something that really bugged me in Pokemon games. Why was it that some Pokemon showed up so late? I really like Misdreavus, but it's all the way in Mt Silver! Even smaller issues like Seel in FRLG felt annoying. I have to beat five whole gyms without this thing? Why even pick it up? This led, inevitably, to my first hacking device: a GameShark for Gen 3. I have a vivid memory of replaying FRLG, excited to hack in my own personalized and very normal starter, Articuno. Articuno was so great when you caught it! Surely it would be even better if I could use it all game!

Now...I did not have the internet at the time. And by Gen 3, I was perhaps overconfident about not needing a strategy guide. So while you may know what happened already, I did not know what was coming. Articuno sucked. Like, really bad. If you look at it, it turns out the answer is obvious: it only knows Gust and Powder Snow as attacks until Ice Beam at level 49. Which...hey, wait a second. That's only one level below what you catch it at to begin with! And it turns out, this was similar all over. Seel didn't learn anything but Headbutt until level 17, it was useless against Brock despite its typing. What is going on? Why do all these Pokemon I like when I catch them at the intended time suck so badly when I get them early?

At the time, I blamed it on the Pokemon being bad and just hacked rare candies. But over time, you begin to suspect that maybe, just maybe, the game was designed on purpose? That maybe there was a structure to the game at large that kept things in balance. With age, it stops being "this was badly designed because I didn't get what I wanted out of it," and starts to become its own thing. To quote a famous Nuzleaf, I believe all of this is happening for a reason.

Friends...let's talk Sword and Shield.

My team was Rillaboom, Thievul, Butterfree, Mr. Rime, Alcremie, and Dragapult kinda sorta, with additional showcasings for Carkoal and Perrserker. I say sorta kinda on Dragapult because I intended to use it, but it didn't fully evolve until after I beat Leon. Oops!

If the intro wasn't a giveaway, I want to talk gameplay first. While we'll get to the story issues, I think gameplay matters more to Pokemon, and is the bigger problem that keeps Galar low on my list. To get some small housekeeping out of the way first:

I will not be harping on graphics, I don't care. Yes I know performance isn't good, but it's mildly annoying at worst.

I will not be harping on designs, they're largely fine. The starters are one of the weakest sets, and the box legends might be my least favorite, but there are plenty of good ones to the region as well.

I will not say "game too easy," but I will be discussing factors that led people to that assertion.

I will not be talking about Dexit. While I hated it at first, having calmed from it, I think it's for the best. I liked when Gen 5 forced you to use the new stuff to generate new favorites, and if anything Dexit should go harder by removing Home so they can more severely tweak stats and movesets between generations.

My problem with Gen 8 gameplay my very well be my own preferred means of playing, but I'm going to attempt making my case with three examples.

First: Growth via TM progression. In my Crystal run, I ran a Togetic, and have a pretty rough time of it. Togetic was never particularly strong, but it had an arc, picking up Mud Slap for Morty, Sunny Day/Solarbeam/Flamethrower for several Kanto gyms, and then falling back on Psychic/Zap Cannon when the earlier set wasn't working out. Togetic had an arc of struggle, in which it had to find tools that made it work for each phase of the game, that came down to recently acquired TMs the game provided naturally. Barring Flamethrower, all of these were free acquisitions.

Compare this to Thievul is Galar. It also is pretty bad, despite access to Nasty Plot, because its best attacking move is Snarl. It needs TMs to learn anything else. But in Galar, TMs are no longer infinite, as TRs now cover the really good moves. And the only way to get them is random den drops, and random shop items around the Wild Area for thousands of Watts, when a full den gives only 300. Acquiring the specific TM it wants is next to impossible. Dens aren't guaranteed to be Dark type, and even if they are, you could get other dark moves like Crunch. The shops aren't guaranteed to sell Dark Pulse, and even if they are, how long will it take to farm 5000 Watts? There is no control over what the Wild Area produces, and thus no arc to be had for anything specific.

Second: growth via learnset progression. In Emerald, I ran a Mawile. Caught at level 37 in Victory Road, we needed several levels before it could learn the move that would give it relevance, and the EXP options were scarce. I had to use an EXP All, cutting the entire team's EXP gains just for Mawile to catch up, while trying to find optional areas with trainers left, and at times trying to keep Mawile in to win the fight herself. There's a struggle and a cost to the growth unit perspective.

Compare that to my Butterfree. Until it gained Quiver Dance, Butterfree contributed little beyond the occasional Sleep Powder lockdown. It took off once it learned Quiver Dance, but the means of getting there was just...have it in the team. Even on the back row, it'll be fine and catch up with no real issue. There's not much of a struggle to overcome, or a sense that you're building things. It just kinda happens to you.

Third: Galar's Intent. I do not have a comparison point for this, but Mr. Rime. Probably my MVP! Once it hits Mr. Mime, it has Icy Wind, Psybeam, and Dazzling Gleam. With a Thunderbolt TM I had randomly picked up from an early den, it had excellent coverage that took down a majority of the region past its evolution. This was a fairly fun find.

I think that's the intent of Galar's structure: accidents. Surprises. The Wild Area lacks any sense of control, holding events locked to the day and forcing save commitments that refuse to allow soft resets for different outcomes. If you can roll with the punches, and accept whatever comes at you, this game probably is a lot of fun. That's probably why my wife likes it so much. But if you can't...well, you're like me, and this game is really difficult to appreciate.

I will, however, argue that it's not just me. The Wild Area's structure is awkward, being the sole home of a lot of different Pokemon, who will only show up under specific weather conditions and at very low rates. Look up how to find Dreepy some time. But the dens lack control as well, unless you manipulate the system's clock in the right way. Then, even if you find something you want, you have to hope for the random TM to drop too. I decided to use Rillaboom because I never once ran a starter, and part of Rillaboom was wanting TMs that required time manipulation to find in stock. If you come in wanting literally anything, the Wild Area is very likely to deny you. You have to come in wanting for nothing at all, working only with what's handed to you, to have a good time.

Which feels crazy disingenuous to me? Pokemon is all about the little critters you can find, and growing an attachment to things you want to catch. Not everything even comes from what's randomly found, sometimes you see something in an enemy team and get really excited for that thing. Like, imagine seeing something like Cursola in Allister's team, and going man, that looks cool! Regional Corsola and it gets an evolution, sign me up! So you go out into the world hoping to get it, only to find that it shows up exactly 5% of the time under one (1) specific weather condition in one (1) region of the Wild Area. Better hope that one area has the right weather condition or there is no way in hell you're getting that Corsola!

I just...I get that replaying Pokemon games is a thing, and that each experience can be different, and that having some random outcomes is beneficial. But Galar takes it way too far. I think their intent was to give players technical access to what they want right away, without making it actually available. See, this is something I heard and agree with: Pokemon is most engaging while you're building the team. Postgames have felt difficult for me to appreciate because my team is done, my moveset is done, I don't want to do the volcano in Platinum I just want to finish. You need to have a ladder to climb and a goal to reach for the game to remain engaging. But players are also impatient, and have gotten worse with this series over time. Learned movesets went from situations where Gyarados learns very little of value naturally, to learning its best Water move at like level 21. Players will tell you they want the feeling of being done early, but that provably kills the experience.

Another thing I'd do with hacking as a kid was bring in all TMs. Yeah, let's start HGSS with a Swinub that has Ice Beam, Rock Slide, and Earthquake, what could go wrong? It turns out everything at once, as you just clobber the entire early game with no resistance. There was no real challenge to approaching the game in this way, and the run turns stale fast because oops, Swinub had its best moveset right out the gate. I started a lot of runs in those days but rarely finished, and it's why nowadays I do have some compulsion about the purity of a run. It can actually take away part of the joy. And more than likely, the devs know this too. So if players demand the ability to kill that joy, but you want to sustain it, what's the compromise?

Make it all so random that it's borderline impossible to account for anything. Yeah dude, you can get everything right away! But you can't get anything specific at all. Which solves nothing and creates new problems. Because now there's no progression toward the endgame outside of learnset, and some learnsets in Galar are hilariously bad. You ever looked at Coalossal's moveset? Its best Rock move is Rock Blast at 54. Good luck not using TMs and making that thing work to any enjoyment. It feels like they overshot the mark, and for anyone who plays like I do, thinking about what Pokemon you want to run or trying to chart a course for the game, it's naturally going to be miserable. Galar still ranks really low for me, but I at least feel like I understand what Galar may have wanted to do.

Gameplay aside...it's time to talk about the aspect that got my wife laughing at me, and will probably have @alphakuriboh saying some things too. Story.

Much like XY, Galar is generally considered a low point for story. Doesn't make sense, antagonist is stupid, etc, you know the drill. However, I do think they Galar was cooking to some degree.

Rose is the main sticking point regarding story, because...again, the antagonist's actions are the only story we get in Pokemon. And he kinda pingpongs. Worried about a millenium from now, he refuses to wait 24 of god's own hours for Leon to finish his sports tournament, and unleashes hell. He acts sad about the state of affairs but resolved that he must do it, then after you beat him is back to borderline cheerful about how fun battles could be. You solve the problem, and Rose turns himself in, never to be heard from again. That is. An event, my dude.

Thing is, I think his actions make more sense given his character, and the theme of Galar. Galar's big theme is a sort of "passing the torch," best summarized by Opal. The old need to know when to step out of the way, but we're not done yet. Opal's stance and her actions tell the full picture. It's not that the old blood needs to disappear, but rather that at some point, the young need to take ownership of their future. They're the ones most impacted by the conditions going forward, after all, and it's important they be granted the ability to decide for themselves what they want.

Rose, as a character, denies that entirely. He manipulates the younger generations for his own ends, and his motivation is about maintaining his own view of things and his legacy 1000 years in the future. Yes, it's a far off problem that can be solved a bit later, but that's not the point. This is his problem, and it has to be solved his way. And most importantly, solved how he commands it. His lack of patience isn't about truly being so hasty. It's about forcing Leon back into compliance. Even if Leon didn't strictly say no, it wasn't a yes, and that's not how this goes.

Rose acts kind, propping up Leon as the unbeatable champion and giving Bede his position and mission. But his actions aren't altruistic. Leon now holds the same neuroses as Rose, taking everything on as his own responsibility. Accidents at the power plant? He'll talk to Rose, you all go on. Dynamax Pokemon going out of control? He'll take care of it, don't worry. Eternatus is unleashed? He'll catch it and take care of it. That last one is even what Rose wants! Leon falls completely into his expected role that Rose shaped for him. Bede also falls exactly into the role he expects, even if it results in discarding him and banning him from the competition as a result. Rose controls the youth in order to shape his vision of the future.

While I didn't play it, I imagine this is the intent with Shieldbert and Sordward, too. Control over the truth of the past alters what you think to do in the future, and so they are just another iteration on this idea, albeit less fleshed out.

Rose's future also lacks accounting for everyone's future. Spikemuth is in horrible poverty because they lack a power spot to draw energy from, or to Dynamax for spectacle from. Any future Rose builds will continue this inequality. His vision of preserving the future isn't a net positive for others, but that's not important. What's important is that it's his future. Which is why he lets himself be locked up. If the energy crisis was really the main concern, then your character catching Eternatus and beating Leon should result in another attempt. It never comes because at this point, whatever happens next is no longer his future. He can't care if it's not what he wanted.

The flip flop on his general mood state is a little harder to read with certainty, but I imagine the intent is one of cycles. I doubt he crafted this company from nothing, and his family likely had their own expectations of him that led to him perceiving every little thing as his concern and losing connection with the fun of things. It's a bit messy, but I'd be lying if I said the start of his fight with him gripping the Pokemon wasn't a cool individual scene.

Now before I get too positive, I do think Galar's story is also rife with problems. Primarily, its refusal to engage the player in anything. We feel utterly disconnected from anything going on with Rose or the region, because Leon's taking care of it instead of us. It does hinder the feeling that we're doing anything particularly important or special.

I also feel like some of their decisions were rather...poor, regarding passing the torch. Mostly Magnolia, if I'm honest. I think the decision to not even use your first old female professor to play up her 20-something granddaughter is...telling. God forbid female professors be old, they have to be super young and pretty. I just think it would've been more interesting to have Sonia acting as assistant to Magnolia and piecing together what your player character does instead. It gives Magnolia more spotlight, and gives Sonia like...an actual function beyond turning to you all the time to ask what you think, rather than posit ideas of her own.

Lastly and most vitriolically...what is the point of Marnie? No really, why is she here? Spikemuth's situation is understood, but Piers carries all the interesting stuff. Refusing to Dynamax as a statement about the inequality and the value of its residents is fantastic, and Marnie just throws it out the window. She holds no convictions, and at no point in the story does she really do anything. She's around for the ride until Piers shows up and has an actual emotional stake in things. His own passing the gym leader torch to her doesn't even feel valuable because she's so disconnected from his philosophical stance. I think Marnie should've been the one out here making that statement by refusing Dynamaxing while climbing the League's ladder, and Team Yell benefits from this as their interference can be interpreted as concern that their one chance for a Champion is playing risky by not using Dynamax for some political point. She just feels pointless.

The less said about postgame the better. That entire sequence is just tedious and annoying and completely missed its mark dramatically.

Unlike Kalos, Galar remains low on the list. I'll admit, I have been harsher on the game than was strictly called for, but I maintain it's one of my least favorites. Its entire design is just so functional antithetical to what I like in these games.

Next...I'm gonna be real, I have no idea. I'm kind of in stasis right now. I don't feel like replaying Gen 9, that's too fresh. I considered White 2 but didn't love White 1, so I'm hesitant. I considered ORAS, which...might be next. And for my own console time...it's either BDSP or I pick up one of the games in my backlog. We'll see what I feel like doing tomorrow.

[subway-boss-jericho]

Current Stuff in the Works

Steady Tracks chapter 2 is still happening (I have finally gotten a second wind and am making decent progress)

I've been working on a short animatic for Spirit Keeper Ingo (It's mostly done but I haven't had the time to go back to it since the semester started)

Potentially might be starting a second fic in the near-to-far future. I realized one of the things tripping me up with STDNW was not having variety, so i might start another fic to work on when I can't make progress on ST.

I am also still working on that Uquiz. all the quiz parts are done but shockingly it takes longer than you think to write 30+ paragraphs about all the different final answers. oof. That's lower on my priority list but i'll probably get it done over the summer

Oh this is important also, STIngo is getting a redesign. It's not major, just wanna fix some shape language stuff. Make him look more pokemon. That'll happen officially at some point but again god forbid I set a concrete deadline sdjghdh ⭐Other animatics in the future, maybe some comics. Art hard, brain bad, fuck it we ball

Thank you for your time, have some doodles 👍 (these are between a month and a year old, horrors of constantly evolving art style n character designs, yadda yadda)

[adobe-outdesign]

Togepi’s Secret

This is the very first Togepi card ever released, from the Neo Genesis set. It has Poison Barb as an attack. That’s a bit weird, right?

This one is the second ever Togepi card, released as a Wizards Black Star Promo... except over in Japan, this card was released before the Neo Genesis one, in 1999. If you don’t notice anything odd about this one, check the Pokedex description:

Still only a hatchling, it uses poison to chase off its enemies when threatened.

This Pokedex entry mentions poison again, and it’s not actually used anywhere in the games.

The reason this is relevant is that beta/unused Pokedex entries have been known to end up on early Pokemon Cards before. This makes it very likely that this card’s description was once Togepi’s beta Pokedex entry, which hadn’t yet been updated at the time of this card’s release in 1999.

Finally, there’s this card from Southern Islands. The scan makes this almost unreadable, but the description on this one reads:

This Pokémon is still immature. When threatened, it releases poison from its head and tries to drive its enemies away.

This was the third Togepi card ever released. After this point, the descriptions start lining up with the Pokedex entries we actually got.

Basically, the implication of all this is that Togepi was originally designed to be a poison-type. Those seemingly random spikes on its head were meant to be its way of distributing poison.

Note that its category, the “Spike Ball Pokemon”, probably references this beta, as something like the “Egg Pokemon” would be more fitting with the final version. Likewise, its Japanese name references spikes as well. To quote Bulbapedia:

Togepi and Togepy may be a combination of 刺 toge (spike) and ピヨピヨ piyopiyo (onomatopoeia for a bird chirping).

Also worth noting is the Spaceworld demo. While Togepi is a normal-type in the 1997 build, The Cutting Room Floor notes this:

Dex placement indicates a late addition. Is quite larger than its final counterpart. Has no evolution.

It being a late addition is likely due to it having been revised from the earlier poison-type version, which may have had a different design. The fact that it was larger and didn’t evolve meant that either it was intended as a single-stager originally, or it had a poison-type evo that had already been scrapped by the time this demo was created.

TL;DR: Togepi was likely a poison-type at one point in Gen 2’s development.

[pokemon-card-of-the-day]

Pokemon Card of the Day #3197: Eevee & Snorlax-GX (Team Up)

Eevee and Snorlax-GX, while a somewhat odd combination of Pokemon that would become rather typical of the era, had some interesting attacks. It was good at punishing anything that evolved and had a GX attack that could get a huge hand refreshment. These attacks required a ton of Energy, so you had to accelerate to it. The nature of this meant that you had to pair this with something that was going to have said acceleration quickly, had a Pokemon that could attack well on its own but would like the backup, and something that could sometimes run lower on cards to maximize a potential draw at the right time. This typically meant running this in a Fire deck, and only in SUM-On because that was where a good amount of Evolved Pokemon at under 240 HP were still common.

270 HP was where you'd want a Tag Team to be at, and that was a lot of bulk to get through. Its main job was to be a huge pain to things like Zoroark-GX, which couldn't even KO it in 2 hits without some help. The Fighting Weakness could potentially come into play a little, as while the type had fallen off quite a bit, Lycanroc-GX was a Stage 1 that could actually hit really hard. The Retreat Cost here was 4, meaning you did have to be careful here. Getting ahead on Prizes meant an unprepared Eevee & Snorlax-GX was easy bait for anything like a Counter Catcher, or at any point a Custom Catcher.

Cheer Up was an attack that did no damage for a Colorless Energy, but it did let you attach an Energy card from your hand to 1 of your Pokemon. You could use this if you didn't have anything better to do, but you'd normally want something else up front if you didn't get stuck starting with this. It was, at least, better than nothing on turn 1 if you were going second.

Dump Truck Press started at 120 damage, but it cost 4 Energy. The price was too steep unless you had the second effect. That effect involved doing 120 more damage if the opponent's Active Pokemon was an Evolution Pokemon. This meant a KO on the top choices out of those in the SUM-On format, including Zoroark-GX and Persian-GX. The issue was that any Basic Pokemon, including Tag Teams, were taking a lot less, so it was a huge match-up play. In the right match-up, it was great, but it was kind of stuck in one format.

Megaton Friends GX had some good moments. It was costly, as 4 Colorless Energy meant you were still leaning on Welder a lot here, and it was your one GX attack. That being said, you did 210 damage which was usually enough for the role being played here, and you also drew cards until you had 10 in your hand. This set you up nicely for your next turn as well as long as you didn't immediately get hit by a Judge. Usually you'd be okay though, and even if not it tended to force that play instead of a different Supporter.

Eevee & Snorlax-GX was a backup option in Reshiram & Charizard decks for the most part. Reshiram & Charizard-GX performed rather well against a lot of things, but Eevee & Snorlax-GX cleaned up Stage 1 Pokemon so well that it was often brought along too. Having a copy or two was reasonably common until the game shifted almost entirely to Tag Teams, and while a few Evolved Pokemon came back later in the Sword & Shield era it never found a great home partly due to higher HP numbers. It sure had a few good months, though, at least in that one deck.

[nerdpokemonheadcanons]

My friend’s Dunsparce evolved sometime during a little recon in Paldea, and she refuses to believe that it’s a new species. Since she’s something of an obsessive researcher, she’s now asking me to show her enough proof to see it.

So, besides appearance and height/weight, what’s the differences between Dunsparce and Dudunsparce that makes it it’s evolution?

Your friend sounds... interesting. Is she a Fairy Type denier too?

Aside from appearance, which I feel like should be enough evidence as it is, Dudunsparce displays the same activated genes that all evolution Pokemon have, as well as an additional set of ribs and a second stomach, which Dunsparce don't have