You're given 20 shards for free in Driftveil
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
So, Pokemon just had a special 9 minute video uploaded celebrating them finally getting over 1000 Pokemon! It's a neat little video full of references which only if you went through the trials and tribulations of catching every Pokemon would you get:
Now, they didn't say anything, but it's a pretty hype video, having a counter going up and up, notably reaching the number 1000 and then continuing with the remainder of the Paldea Legendaries and Paradox Pokemon.
All I'm saying it would have been the PERFECT time to announce a new Pokemon, be it a Paldea Mythical or a Pokemon we'll be seeing the DLC...
They have 1008 in big letters at the very end, it's just SCREAMING to go up one or even two more. We've all seen the Violet/Scarlet book, we've seen the two "imaginary" Pokemon which were fusions of the Legendary Beasts & Swords of Justice. We've seen the eldritch abomination-Biblical accurate angel Pokemon who's name you keep hiding, only calling it the "Disc Pokemon"...
... Nothing? Just, ending the video on 1008. There's nothing you want to announce that's past the SV box mascots? Not even going to announce something like a Shiny Gimmighoul event? Just, ending it right there, wanted to just I guess gloat that you made over 1000 Pokemon species (cause technically you got over 1000 like last generation or so with all the form variants)?
7/10, liked the video, but too much hype for little payoff.
All I'm saying it would have been the PERFECT time to announce a new Pokemon, be it a Paldea Mythical or a Pokemon we'll be seeing the DLC...
They have 1008 in big letters at the very end, it's just SCREAMING to go up one or even two more. We've all seen the Violet/Scarlet book, we've seen the two "imaginary" Pokemon which were fusions of the Legendary Beasts & Swords of Justice. We've seen the eldritch abomination-Biblical accurate angel Pokemon who's name you keep hiding, only calling it the "Disc Pokemon"...
... Nothing? Just, ending the video on 1008. There's nothing you want to announce that's past the SV box mascots? Not even going to announce something like a Shiny Gimmighoul event? Just, ending it right there, wanted to just I guess gloat that you made over 1000 Pokemon species (cause technically you got over 1000 like last generation or so with all the form variants)?
So Tobias is infamous in the anime because of his clear purpose as "make sure Ash doesn't win this league," it's known and been complained about all over the place. He has very little set-up, shows up with Legendaries in an anime where catching them is a massive feat, clean sweeps the team rather than having a real fight, and then is never brought up again by anyone except critical viewers.
Here I want to add one small complaint to the mountain of large ones he invites: Why is his only other Pokemon shown a Latios? I don't specifically mean him having more Legendary Pokemon, I mean why is it half of a duo that is rarely depicted separately in ANY Pokemon media when it's being brought out as an afterthought here on its own? This of all things is what contributes to the no-assed feeling of his eliminating Ash from the tournament, like someone just pulled Legendary/Uber names out of a hat and threw one onto his team.
If it was a Legendary that can be depicted solo I'd probably raise less of an eyebrow regardless of how nonsensical the specific one was: Heatran, Jirachi, Cresselia, hell I'd be marginally less confused if he broke out goddamn Mewtwo somehow. I don't even question the idea that these 2 could beat the entire team Ash ran for that battle (Soul Dew Latios and Gen 4 Darkrai were nuts by Uber Standards even), but they don't match each other visually or thematically at all. Hell, give him just both Latis so I at least feel like he didn't kidnap some Jet-Dragon's brother.
Here I want to add one small complaint to the mountain of large ones he invites: Why is his only other Pokemon shown a Latios? I don't specifically mean him having more Legendary Pokemon, I mean why is it half of a duo that is rarely depicted separately in ANY Pokemon media when it's being brought out as an afterthought here on its own? This of all things is what contributes to the no-assed feeling of his eliminating Ash from the tournament, like someone just pulled Legendary/Uber names out of a hat and threw one onto his team.
If it was a Legendary that can be depicted solo I'd probably raise less of an eyebrow regardless of how nonsensical the specific one was: Heatran, Jirachi, Cresselia, hell I'd be marginally less confused if he broke out goddamn Mewtwo somehow. I don't even question the idea that these 2 could beat the entire team Ash ran for that battle (Soul Dew Latios and Gen 4 Darkrai were nuts by Uber Standards even), but they don't match each other visually or thematically at all. Hell, give him just both Latis so I at least feel like he didn't kidnap some Jet-Dragon's brother.
At least I'd have assumed this to coincide with something in Go or with Pokemon Bank for SV, SOMETHING tying into the idea of catching these 1000 creatures they showed off and compiled for us. It's not even like there's a particular occasion that this ties into as a flex, the timing's incredibly random and inconsequential.
Are you sure?
Nimbasa City you get 10 Red Shards from a Gentleman in the Pokemon Center.
Driftveil is where the Red Shard Move Tutor is (who does teach Signal Beam for 4 Red Shards, along with some other notable moves like Drill Run, Iron Head, Seed Bomb, Low Kick, and the Elemental Punches).
Yes the Nimbasa Red Shards are what I was thinking of, conflating that you got the shards in the same place as the tutor. Not sure why I thought 20 instead of 10.
I'd actually really like it if Ash had taken out the Darkrai right away with Heracross, then had the rest of his team blown away by Latios. Ash came in with a strat for Darkrai, it would have been really good if that strat had worked well, even if he still lost. They might have had to do something else to make the pacing work if they did that, but I think it would have had more impact if Ash beat Darkrai purely because he's smarter than Tobias, who only knows how to spam powerful mons.
I find it interesting they've never brought Tobias back for any sort of super-tournament. Probably the writers want to forget him as much as everyone else does.
I want an explanation for the guy we see standing in the line for the league with a Heatran. We never see him again. What? It’s like they were pulling names out of a hat to determine the Pokémon we saw in the line and they forgot to take out the legendaries. What happened to him?
We never see him again, but I'll assume he was defeated by Tobias. Scrub only brought ONE Legendary, not that he was able to defeat Darkrai with it anyway (as Ash is said to be the only trainer to defeat Tobias' Darkrai).
This.
If they have to have a set level for the bosses, fine. But why is there no easy way to follow the order? Even if they wanted you to be able to go up either side first, neither side is set up for that. It would be very easy to have one side just 1-3-5-7 and the other 2-4-6-8, but both sides have large gaps, AND there's obvious out-of-order curveballs on either side just to screw with you. It's like they want you to run into challenges that are too strong for you, but Pokemon is notably bad at signposting how tough a fight is before you're in it, and we've been told for 25 years that we can't run from major fights. It's a recipe for frustration.
If they have to have a set level for the bosses, fine. But why is there no easy way to follow the order? Even if they wanted you to be able to go up either side first, neither side is set up for that. It would be very easy to have one side just 1-3-5-7 and the other 2-4-6-8, but both sides have large gaps, AND there's obvious out-of-order curveballs on either side just to screw with you. It's like they want you to run into challenges that are too strong for you, but Pokemon is notably bad at signposting how tough a fight is before you're in it, and we've been told for 25 years that we can't run from major fights. It's a recipe for frustration.
Don't worry, I got you covered. I made a line map of walking paths and flight paths you should take for a goal-to-goal route:
(Note: You start in Mesagoza, end at Eri, red lines means paths you need to go on foot/ride, dark red paths are taxi quick travel. Now, depending on your amount of exploration, you may have some quick travel spots closer to next objective. With what I did above I believe I followed the most "logical" path one would take if someone decided to forego exploration and just went to the next boss asap. Credit goes to mandatory.gg for providing this handy version of the map with the Badges set to the side with the order number)
No need to thank me.
I fought Katy last and felt so sorry for her.
Not to mention there is NO way to know the exact order in-game other than going and checking personally (with the waste of time that entails).
Minor thing (tho isn’t that what this thread is about lol): it kinda irks me that the Treasures of Ruin have their names romanized with the old Wade-Giles method instead of the current Hanyu Pinyin. I figure it’s to make pronunciation easier, but... it still comes off as wrong to me.
The Japanese Pokedex updated and it reminded me of a pet peeve I have
https://zukan.pokemon.co.jp/
See it also lists out most forms of Pokemon; it skips on stuff like the Unown and Vivillons I presume because there's just too many. Anyway the thing that quickly becomes apparent is that while a lot of forms do have artwork, many don't. So the Tatsugiris do but 3-segment Dudunsparce doesn't; it just displays a posed model.
So that's a little annoying to me already because it's like c'mon you got all this other artwork just go whole hog. Like really you're doing all 3 Tatsugiri but not all 4 Squawkabilly?
But the one that really gets my goat is Darmanitan's Zen MOdes
Because Unovan Zen Mode Darmanitan actually has official artwork
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/File:555Darmanitan-Zen.png
It was in the USUM guidebook back in 2017, the first and seemingly only appearence of this piece of art. But for whatever reason the website's never used it. And I feel certain that they had to have a similar artwork already just for concept art purposes for Galarian Zen Mode so its like c'mon!! C'mon!!
Equally annoying is that the Antique Sinistea & Polteageist are marked on here and just...reuse their normal form artworks. If there were any forms to either ignore or just show the models of, with them turned to point the mark, it would be these ones. But no!
https://zukan.pokemon.co.jp/
See it also lists out most forms of Pokemon; it skips on stuff like the Unown and Vivillons I presume because there's just too many. Anyway the thing that quickly becomes apparent is that while a lot of forms do have artwork, many don't. So the Tatsugiris do but 3-segment Dudunsparce doesn't; it just displays a posed model.
So that's a little annoying to me already because it's like c'mon you got all this other artwork just go whole hog. Like really you're doing all 3 Tatsugiri but not all 4 Squawkabilly?
But the one that really gets my goat is Darmanitan's Zen MOdes
Because Unovan Zen Mode Darmanitan actually has official artwork
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/File:555Darmanitan-Zen.png
It was in the USUM guidebook back in 2017, the first and seemingly only appearence of this piece of art. But for whatever reason the website's never used it. And I feel certain that they had to have a similar artwork already just for concept art purposes for Galarian Zen Mode so its like c'mon!! C'mon!!
Equally annoying is that the Antique Sinistea & Polteageist are marked on here and just...reuse their normal form artworks. If there were any forms to either ignore or just show the models of, with them turned to point the mark, it would be these ones. But no!
As much as I don't mind Iron Jugulis design... I think it was a missed opportunity design-wise.
It would have been cool for them to go back to Hydreigon's original concept and make it more like a cyborg tank... but oh well, I guess it would have been too different from the other future Paradoxes.
It would have been cool for them to go back to Hydreigon's original concept and make it more like a cyborg tank... but oh well, I guess it would have been too different from the other future Paradoxes.
Yes, but that's actually not quite my issue. Clearly, no designer would expect you to bounce back and forth like that. If you banned fast travel, what would you do?Don't worry, I got you covered. I made a line map of walking paths and flight paths you should take for a goal-to-goal route:
(Note: You start in Mesagoza, end at Eri, red lines means paths you need to go on foot/ride, dark red paths are taxi quick travel. Now, depending on your amount of exploration, you may have some quick travel spots closer to next objective. With what I did above I believe I followed the most "logical" path one would take if someone decided to forego exploration and just went to the next boss asap. Credit goes to mandatory.gg for providing this handy version of the map with the Badges set to the side with the order number)
No need to thank me.
Logically, if you start the game blind, it's easy to just decide to go one way out of Mesagoza and handle things as they come up, with some attention paid to levels. That divides the map into 3 areas(East/West/Lategame(North)). And even doing that is still a mess of a route.
West side...no. IDK why they did that at all, every step of that side takes you somewhere no one would expect to be next, and if you walk into the wrong fight, it's an insurmountable level spike.
Once you've done either of those, the north...Ryme is too out-of-the-way for her level, IDK when they expect you to actually go there. The rest of the area makes some sense(Grusha is right there after beating Ryme, then FairyStar is within sight, and it doesn't really matter which of the last two you do first), but Ryme is nonsense.
Just...I don't know what they actually wanted players to do.
run into a level spike, lose or struggle for a win, and then go to a different place, I assume
The Pokémon Home renders may not be the prettiest, but at least they’re all-encompassing and consistent!
As someone who’s never been that interested in the scrapped Hydreigon tank concept, I was pleasantly surprised by Jugulis’s simplicity, although I do think it could use a little more flair. Maybe something with the wings, or the feet, or make the head-hands do something flashy when it attacks.
Yeah it's the nice bit of Home's renders. And how they handle the antique forms: they alter the render to show it off. Incidentally the English pokedex just doesn't even bother. If you don't have the art, you're not even getting listed
Jugulis does feel like the one Future Paradox where they don't really have anything interesting going on with its animations beyond its "power on" idle. Most of the others take advantage of being a robot and have some funky animations from spinning parts or whatever (Iron Bundle in particular has some of the better ones), but Jugulis just has the jerky movements everyone has.
Personally, I would extend this to Iron Thorns as well. I get that the gravity of another Mecha Godzilla shout-out was probably too strong to resist, but I feel like it could use just a bit more to set it apart from Tyranitar visually. I do really like its flavor text, about being calmer and wiser than Tyranitar, but design-wise it does kinda feel like it’s just “Tyranitar, but metal.”
Granted, it does have the laser spikes on its back, but they’re not very prominent. And they kinda clash with its name — those are presumably the “thorns” that inspire its name, but given that they’re not very large and only protrude when it’s attacking, I don’t really think of them as the feature that one would notice most about them. (Incidentally, I would say the same about Jugulis’s throat.) Plus, they’re like the one part of Iron Thorns that isn’t metallic.
I was joking BTW, the hopping around is ridiculous. While making maps, might as well show you my path, VERY simplified as I did plenty of exploring:
So, to explain my thinking, as you said I wanted to more or less clear the sides before moving to the top. I also wanted to make sure I did a mix of all activities with "focus" on the Gyms. Since the game prompts you to do both a Gym and Titan first, since there was more Gyms I challenged Katy first (sorry Katy) and then went to take on the Titan (followed by Brassius). Well, being Mela is RIGHT there, and thinking "well, since they heavily advertised her and only her, she's probably the first intended Star boss", I challenged her 4th. Now, that's not too bad, since I was exploring as much as I could I was actually quite well Leveled plus had plenty of Pokemon to handle Fire-types so I got through without incident. Deciding to "clear out" the bottom east side, and the second major city seemed like an interesting location, I challenged Iono.
With that done, I figured I'll mirror my victories and flew to the west side. While figuring out how to get to that strange out-of-the-way bottom Gym the trigger for the Flying Titan happened and decided to take care of that as throwing boulders is just rude (plus wanted to see what the windmills had to offer, happy we were allowed to climb up them). Anyway, after failing to jump a simple ledge to enter the intended way to Alfornada, I found the bottom way... and experienced my first Level spike. Suddenly all the Pokemon were Titans and all the Trainers were Gym Leaders. Now, I could have decided to come back later with higher levels, but the game didn't expect somthing: me being too stubborn to know better. So, pretty much ignoring ALL battles, I managed to Alfornada to at least save at the Pokemon Center. Now, with it on the map I could have gone to Cascarrafa to see if Levels were better there... BUT now with a Pokemon Center nearby and my Pokemon not being TOO underlevel I decided to first beat as many trainers needed to get the League Rep's reward. After doing that, well, I could at least see how the Gym Test is (hi Dendra, are we battling you? Oh, no, just a vibe check, got it). Okay, so that wasn't hard... eh, I'll challenge Tulip, got PLENTY of potions plus my Skeledirge... OF course her Psychics would be packing Crunch and Shadow Ball; power on through!
Well, I just defeated the 7th Gym Leader as my 4th (and overall the 14th Badge as my 7th), at this point I realized the Levels are set so wondering if I'm not overleveled by the game's standards. I was. Cleared Kofu, Paradox Donphan Titan, and Larry (surprised I did Kofu and Larry technically in order, though that only makes the Paradox Donphan Titan being a couple Badges above them odd) so the entire south was done! With a giant lake and snowy mountain directly north, figured now would be a good time to fly back to the other side and take on the "quarry" next and its Steel Titan. Got through Atticus so now all that was left was the 2 Gyms, 2 Star, and 1 Titan. Well, obviously a Gym would be next and since they advertised Grusha that probably means the Ghost Gym is last, RIGHT. Well, might as well have been as, spoiler, I had a more tougher time with Rhyme than Grusha, at least some of her Pokemon was able to take a hit (though tbf to Grusha, Torch Song is OP).
I went for Eri next (and that was quite a challenge, didn't know whether it was a Level spike or just cause Fighting-types hit hard... turns out she was meant to be the last Badge you get for some reason). Decided I was good to take on the last Dragon Titan and fully upgrade my 'Raidon... oh, and I guess finish the Path of Legends (though I didn't battle Arven until after I did the Pokemon League & Team Star as I learned about the final story and how doing Path of Legends last better rolls into it). Wanting to finish the Gyms last, I defeated Ortega where I learned not only was he weaker than Eri but also had the most plot relevant story and left confused why they would do that. Well, Rhyme was supposed to the 6th Gym/12th Badge and I've gotten every other, so though the battle was fun just because it was a Double Battle which was a nice change, it was a done deal.
Hence, my Treasure Hunt route, showing just how ludicrous the intended route is supposed to be while also showing with enough exploration it doesn't matter. *Shaky thumbs up?*
