Pokémon (Not-So) Griefing Thread - Scarlet and Violet Released with 10 Million Copies in First 3 Days in Buggy States

[UntimelyDhelmise]

Something that's been bugging me with Unova for quite some time has been the weird theming, or seeming lack thereof, with the region. It's Pokemon New York yet the legendaries are tao symbols, The 3 Musketeers and nature genies (if you ask me the Swords of Justice and Snivy line in particular were introduced a gen too early and should've been Kalos natives). Then there's ancient castles and stories of royal families and such and it's like, this is a North American region isn't it? I guess there's Alder for actual native American content but I guess they didn't want to get into that stuff too much considering how easily prickled people get with Indians in any context even back then. Not to say there wasn't ANY NA stuff (Braviary, Bouffalant, ect.) but it's nonetheless an odder mixture than usual I feel.

I'm sure plenty of people like it that way compared to more current gens where there tends to be lot more rigid theming but, idk, always felt like they weren't really sure what to do with the first non-Japanese region (not counting the Orre games) and kinda threw a bunch of ideas at a dartboard.

 

[Picklechu]

Finally finished the Toxtricity set I wanted. I might do a Gigantamax Lapras set next, or I may do one of the Eeveelutions so I can get rid of the roughly 30 Eevee I have sitting around in boxes and Home.

Unrelated, I cannot find one of these damn shiny Pikachu raids. None of the others have been this elusive.

 

[Itu aru kamusu tugeza]

Something that's been bugging me with Unova for quite some time has been the weird theming, or seeming lack thereof, with the region. It's Pokemon New York yet the legendaries are tao symbols, The 3 Musketeers and nature genies (if you ask me the Swords of Justice and Snivy line in particular were introduced a gen too early and should've been Kalos natives). Then there's ancient castles and stories of royal families and such and it's like, this is a North American region isn't it? I guess there's Alder for actual native American content but I guess they didn't want to get into that stuff too much considering how easily prickled people get with Indians in any context even back then. Not to say there wasn't ANY NA stuff (Braviary, Bouffalant, ect.) but it's nonetheless an odder mixture than usual I feel.

I'm sure plenty of people like it that way compared to more current gens where there tends to be lot more rigid theming but, idk, always felt like they weren't really sure what to do with the first non-Japanese region (not counting the Orre games) and kinda threw a bunch of ideas at a dartboard.

I personally think making the new region based on the Northeastern US at the very least gave the creative team carte blanche to be a little risky with what to pick and choose cultural elements to stick in geographically. You have to remember though, up until this point Pokémon regions were at the very least surprisingly realistic interpretations of their real-life counterparts; Kanto is a busy and closed bay area centered around Saffron (Tokyo), Johto reflects the countryside flavor of Kantō’s neighboring Kansai region to the west, Hoenn is very distinctly tropical in terms of the biomes it offers much like Kyūshū, and Sinnoh is very reflective of the more frigid island of Hokkaido to the north, with noticeable elements of Ainu influence in places like Snowpoint Temple, as well as the associated motifs of the lake guardians.

We’ve been about 10 or so years through this “world tour” phase that mainline’s been going through as of late, but with all this genuine history and geography that’s just thrown out since Gen V, I’ve been hoping for some time that a competent dev makes a more grounded, immersive Japan-walking-sim game with a Pokémon flavor; Yo-kai Watch almost filled in this niche for me, but anyone familiar with that series knows that Level-5’s approach to managing it is to just throw darts at the board and hope the resulting spinoff sells.

Edit:
I didn't really elaborate on Unova at all. Unova as a region... feels very weak. I know it started the trend of regions being designed to facilitate the box legendaries and story, but hear me out.

Spoiler: Unova's mixed reception

The original Black and White were a bit of a major departure from previous entries, that much is very obvious, but since it was also developed on such a very short notice to coincide with the impending retirement of the DS line of consoles, Masuda probably tried to compensate for the team's otherwise lack of familiarity with the USA and opted instead to make a soft reboot for the series, divorcing it from most of the series conventions up until that point and implementing what a lot of people wanted out of a Pokémon game by fully implementing a true JRPG story, and also drastically fleshing out the human characters by comparison.

Though this pleased a lot of people who actually played the game, not long after release online discussion bubbled with a bunch of (rightful) criticism people had about the game; the route design practically railroaded you into doing one big lap around Unova, every other Pokémon introduced was a boring carbon-copy of another Kanto Pokémon, and the biggest one; Pokémon outside the Unova Pokédex would be otherwise unavailable to use in the main campaign, and only a very small minority of non-Unovan Pokémon would be catchable post-game. Of all the grievances people had, this one was probably the least nuanced and the most obvious, making it ridiculously easy to transmit. Word quickly spread; "even though Castelia has a giant billboard with a Pikachu on it, you can't catch it in this game." With how big the Pokémon fanbase was at the time, it very quickly overshadowed a lot of the other minor structural problems people had with the games... sound familiar?

In hindsight though, a lot of it stemmed from the fact that people really didn't want a repeat of Gen III happening again and face the prospect of all their prior achievements, ribbons, Pokémon collected amount to nothing (though behind the scenes, Game Freak was actually working with people familiar with emulation and Pokémon data structure to retroactively fix that in time for their big 25th anniversary year in the form of 3DS Virtual Console releases with Bank support, though that's beside the point).

Black 2/White 2 took the brute force approach and outright directly addressed a majority of these concerns (mainly the drastically reduced roster), releasing as a somewhat stopgap title during building anticipation for the then-next-gen Pokémon title on the 3DS, which was only barely announced as X & Y barely less than 3 months from the North American release (6 months from the Japanese release), but due to Game Freak's corporate structure, it also meant that Masuda wasn't the driving force behind these sequel titles, rather, he was responsible for the upcoming 3DS games which would get a simultaneous release.

This also meant drastically scaling back the story proper in lieu of providing save-bonus worldbuilding cutscenes unlocked when linking with the previous entries, and having the overall structure of the game fit a lot more snugly into the conventional formula (Gym Leaders don't have as critical a stake in the plot as before, there's only really one central "villain" in Colress who isn't really given enough time to shine, (his other interpretations in manga, anime, etc. differ wildly), there's more side activities than ever but legitimately don't really fit into any of the story's framework either (Pokéstar Studios, a glorified mission mode that does well to introduce the novelty and function of legitimate competitive builds is only accessed after a meaningless NPC detour, the same with Battle Subway, PWT, and later on, a literal NPC roadblock that bars access to Black City/White Forest), Ghetsis fully embracing the role as a Giovanni and being comically bloodthirsty without any more reason, and N arriving unprompted to halt his plans, etc. All in all, I'd call these two games very chaotic in terms of content and what they bring to the table, since it ends up being neat sentiment, but as a cohesive game it falls very short.

TL;DR: All of the worldbuilding present in gens I-IV are sacrificed for character interaction of varying degrees of quality, and that only becomes more apparent the further down you go.

I could elaborate further but I don't want this looking as much as a text tirade as it already does here. It doesn't need much to explain why XY are very poor caricatures of France, and very forgettable games on their own right.

 

[TrippinKahlua]

Six Badges in, just outside of Spikemuth on the Water Route.

I dunno why I let initial reviews of the game put me off buying last November, I'm personally quite enjoying this game.

I rotated my Pokemon a lot but I've solidified my final team.

Cinderace
Corvinight
Crawdaunt
Coalossal
Vileplume
Beartic

I didnt even notice all the C Pokemon until I typed it out, lol.

Believe it or not, I'm already planning on playing through again. I'm loving the story that much, and I want to play all the Gyms again. I love that fanfare at the end of the battle. "RAH RAH RAHRAHRAH! RAAAAA-RAA-RA-RA!"

Though I do need the DLC. I need those Galar Form Legendary Birds.

 

[McMitch]

Six Badges in, just outside of Spikemuth on the Water Route.

I dunno why I let initial reviews of the game put me off buying last November, I'm personally quite enjoying this game.

I rotated my Pokemon a lot but I've solidified my final team.

Cinderace
Corvinight
Crawdaunt
Coalossal
Vileplume
Beartic

I didnt even notice all the C Pokemon until I typed it out, lol.

Believe it or not, I'm already planning on playing through again. I'm loving the story that much, and I want to play all the Gyms again. I love that fanfare at the end of the battle. "RAH RAH RAHRAHRAH! RAAAAA-RAA-RA-RA!"

Though I do need the DLC. I need those Galar Form Legendary Birds.

I don’t know how I feel about regional forms of legendaries, especially when those new forms are completely unrecognizable to the originals
(I’m also a bit tired of the gen 1 pandering)

 

[SnowBall]

I personally think making the new region based on the Northeastern US at the very least gave the creative team carte blanche to be a little risky with what to pick and choose cultural elements to stick in geographically. You have to remember though, up until this point Pokémon regions were at the very least surprisingly realistic interpretations of their real-life counterparts; Kanto is a busy and closed bay area centered around Saffron (Tokyo), Johto reflects the countryside flavor of Kantō’s neighboring Kansai region to the west, Hoenn is very distinctly tropical in terms of the biomes it offers much like Kyūshū, and Sinnoh is very reflective of the more frigid island of Hokkaido to the north, with noticeable elements of Ainu influence in places like Snowpoint Temple, as well as the associated motifs of the lake guardians.

We’ve been about 10 or so years through this “world tour” phase that mainline’s been going through as of late, but with all this genuine history and geography that’s just thrown out since Gen V, I’ve been hoping for some time that a competent dev makes a more grounded, immersive Japan-walking-sim game with a Pokémon flavor; Yo-kai Watch almost filled in this niche for me, but anyone familiar with that series knows that Level-5’s approach to managing it is to just throw darts at the board and hope the resulting spinoff sells.

Edit:
I didn't really elaborate on Unova at all. Unova as a region... feels very weak. I know it started the trend of regions being designed to facilitate the box legendaries and story, but hear me out.

Spoiler: Unova's mixed reception

The original Black and White were a bit of a major departure from previous entries, that much is very obvious, but since it was also developed on such a very short notice to coincide with the impending retirement of the DS line of consoles, Masuda probably tried to compensate for the team's otherwise lack of familiarity with the USA and opted instead to make a soft reboot for the series, divorcing it from most of the series conventions up until that point and implementing what a lot of people wanted out of a Pokémon game by fully implementing a true JRPG story, and also drastically fleshing out the human characters by comparison.

Though this pleased a lot of people who actually played the game, not long after release online discussion bubbled with a bunch of (rightful) criticism people had about the game; the route design practically railroaded you into doing one big lap around Unova, every other Pokémon introduced was a boring carbon-copy of another Kanto Pokémon, and the biggest one; Pokémon outside the Unova Pokédex would be otherwise unavailable to use in the main campaign, and only a very small minority of non-Unovan Pokémon would be catchable post-game. Of all the grievances people had, this one was probably the least nuanced and the most obvious, making it ridiculously easy to transmit. Word quickly spread; "even though Castelia has a giant billboard with a Pikachu on it, you can't catch it in this game." With how big the Pokémon fanbase was at the time, it very quickly overshadowed a lot of the other minor structural problems people had with the games... sound familiar?

In hindsight though, a lot of it stemmed from the fact that people really didn't want a repeat of Gen III happening again and face the prospect of all their prior achievements, ribbons, Pokémon collected amount to nothing (though behind the scenes, Game Freak was actually working with people familiar with emulation and Pokémon data structure to retroactively fix that in time for their big 25th anniversary year in the form of 3DS Virtual Console releases with Bank support, though that's beside the point).

Black 2/White 2 took the brute force approach and outright directly addressed a majority of these concerns (mainly the drastically reduced roster), releasing as a somewhat stopgap title during building anticipation for the then-next-gen Pokémon title on the 3DS, which was only barely announced as X & Y barely less than 3 months from the North American release (6 months from the Japanese release), but due to Game Freak's corporate structure, it also meant that Masuda wasn't the driving force behind these sequel titles, rather, he was responsible for the upcoming 3DS games which would get a simultaneous release.

This also meant drastically scaling back the story proper in lieu of providing save-bonus worldbuilding cutscenes unlocked when linking with the previous entries, and having the overall structure of the game fit a lot more snugly into the conventional formula (Gym Leaders don't have as critical a stake in the plot as before, there's only really one central "villain" in Colress who isn't really given enough time to shine, (his other interpretations in manga, anime, etc. differ wildly), there's more side activities than ever but legitimately don't really fit into any of the story's framework either (Pokéstar Studios, a glorified mission mode that does well to introduce the novelty and function of legitimate competitive builds is only accessed after a meaningless NPC detour, the same with Battle Subway, PWT, and later on, a literal NPC roadblock that bars access to Black City/White Forest), Ghetsis fully embracing the role as a Giovanni and being comically bloodthirsty without any more reason, and N arriving unprompted to halt his plans, etc. All in all, I'd call these two games very chaotic in terms of content and what they bring to the table, since it ends up being neat sentiment, but as a cohesive game it falls very short.

TL;DR: All of the worldbuilding present in gens I-IV are sacrificed for character interaction of varying degrees of quality, and that only becomes more apparent the further down you go.

I could elaborate further but I don't want this looking as much as a text tirade as it already does here. It doesn't need much to explain why XY are very poor caricatures of France, and very forgettable games on their own right.

The whole box legendary thing started in gen 3. The trend can even be traced all the way back to Crystal with the Suicine plot. To me Crystal is where they started sowing the seeds that fully took root in Gen 3 and beyond with box legendaries.

I like Unova specifically because it is ugly and detached from gens 1-4. Don’t get me wrong I love those regions but after awhile the Pokemon world started feeling, for a lack of better terms, too pretty and clean. Unova has this ugly, chaotic nature that feels refreshing. For some reason the Pokemon reminded me a lot of the gnarly old school Digimon aesthetic. I used to hate a lot of the Unova Pokemon back in the day but as I got older I started to appreciate the uglier ones which extended to many ugly Pokemon in other generations.

That said I do agree that it is a little too chaotic and the linearity is bad. I think it suffered from having too many legendary Pokemon, a trend started in Gen IV but blew up bad in V. Trimming down some of the legendaries would fix some of the issues the region had with identity. For the linearity the could have added more optional side quests and areas outside of the loop. Out of the way places like Kanto’s Power Plant and Seafoam islands that don’t require the main story to go to for example.

 

[Itu aru kamusu tugeza]

The whole box legendary thing started in gen 3. The trend can even be traced all the way back to Crystal with the Suicine plot. To me Crystal is where they started sowing the seeds that fully took root in Gen 3 and beyond with box legendaries.

I like Unova specifically because it is ugly and detached from gens 1-4. Don’t get me wrong I love those regions but after awhile the Pokemon world started feeling, for a lack of better terms, too pretty and clean. Unova has this ugly, chaotic nature that feels refreshing. For some reason the Pokemon reminded me a lot of the gnarly old school Digimon aesthetic. I used to hate a lot of the Unova Pokemon back in the day but as I got older I started to appreciate the uglier ones which extended to many ugly Pokemon in other generations.

That said I do agree that it is a little too chaotic and the linearity is bad. I think it suffered from having too many legendary Pokemon, a trend started in Gen IV but blew up bad in V. Trimming down some of the legendaries would fix some of the issues the region had with identity. For the linearity the could have added more optional side quests and areas outside of the loop. Out of the way places like Kanto’s Power Plant and Seafoam islands that don’t require the main story to go to for example.

I personally don’t have a problem with the number of legendaries, per se, but unlike the lake guardians, Regi archtypes, birds and beasts, the genies and musketeers have very little bearing on the plot and worldbuilding if at all, sort of close to what role the birds had in Kanto before they were retroactively made subservient to Lugia the following gen. Personally I think the genies being deities of fertility and disaster would’ve fared better in a region like Johto, so in my mind it feels like Pokémon ideas they implemented too late; you could also say the same for Zygarde in Sun and Moon; it’s hilariously out of place and also has zero plot relevance.
Compare Alola which also had a similar amount of side legends, but also justified them through proper worldbuilding; island deities make perfect sense for a Hawaiian setting, Ultra Beasts are deliberately alien and it’s softballed in the intro and slowly introduced. Type: Null feels like the only real exception since it almost seems like a leftover Gen IV design in concept and function, but they make it work having him stick by Gladion the entire game.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Quick question from someone extremely out of the loop but feeling nostalgic. The whole physical/special attack split thing. Is that in Heart Gold/Soul Silver, or not?

 

[Dunsparce]

Quick question from someone extremely out of the loop but feeling nostalgic. The whole physical/special attack split thing. Is that in Heart Gold/Soul Silver, or not?

The split was made in Diamond and Pearl, the first Gen IV games and first games on the Nintendo DS. So yes, HGSS have the split.

 

[UntimelyDhelmise]

I personally don’t have a problem with the number of legendaries, per se, but unlike the lake guardians, Regi archtypes, birds and beasts, the genies and musketeers have very little bearing on the plot and worldbuilding if at all, sort of close to what role the birds had in Kanto before they were retroactively made subservient to Lugia the following gen.

OH BOY TIME TO TARD RAGE OVER LUGIA AGAIN.

Lugia to this day irks me with its forced popularity. None of its lore and worldbuilding really makes any sense. First of all, why is it the trio master of the Kanto birds? Absolutely nothing in the main series gives an reason for it unlike Ho-oh who literally resurrected its charges.

Also there's the incongruity of it allegedly being the "guardian of the seas" yet all the thing does is sleep at the bottom of a random cave and seems to just cause storms when it's pissed or something. Compare this to Kyogre the very next gen who truly is the master of the oceans and physically proved it during the actual story by nearly flooding the entire fucking region (not to mention it actually has the proper damn type for its title and none of this Psychic/Flying nonsense).

But none of this matters because in the end, it was the one who got the favoritism, not Ho-oh. Ask Lugia fans the reasons why its one of their favorites and 99% of the time they'll cite the second movie before anything else (and to a lesser extend XD: Gale of Darkness), oftentimes barely even mentioning much about the Pokemon itself on its own merits (and if they do it's because the person is a furfag because for some reason Lugia is extremely popular with those fucks).

All Ho-oh got was a split-second cameo in the first episode and one actual movie years later and even then it had most of its screentime stolen by the token mythical of the month. No justice I tell you.

 

[Itu aru kamusu tugeza]

OH BOY TIME TO TARD RAGE OVER LUGIA AGAIN.

Lugia to this day irks me with its forced popularity. None of its lore and worldbuilding really makes any sense. First of all, why is it the trio master of the Kanto birds? Absolutely nothing in the main series gives an reason for it unlike Ho-oh who literally resurrected its charges.

Also there's the incongruity of it allegedly being the "guardian of the seas" yet all the thing does is sleep at the bottom of a random cave and seems to just cause storms when it's pissed or something. Compare this to Kyogre the very next gen who truly is the master of the oceans and physically proved it during the actual story by nearly flooding the entire fucking region (not to mention it actually has the proper damn type for its title and none of this Psychic/Flying nonsense).

But none of this matters because in the end, it was the one who got the favoritism, not Ho-oh. Ask Lugia fans the reasons why its one of their favorites and 99% of the time they'll cite the second movie before anything else (and to a lesser extend XD: Gale of Darkness), oftentimes barely even mentioning much about the Pokemon itself on its own merits (and if they do it's because the person is a furfag because for some reason Lugia is extremely popular with those fucks).

All Ho-oh got was a split-second cameo in the first episode and one actual movie years later and even then it had most of its screentime stolen by the token mythical of the month. No justice I tell you.

I sort of agree in the sense that the anime series became way too influential and detrimental to the overall brand for its own good. What sort of ends up being lost between the lines is that the first four gens were always slightly fantastical interpretations of Japan, so there are a few images floating around the internet (I haven’t seen it since mind you) of a completely inaccurate “PokéEarth” that just throws all the game regions (spinoffs included) in hodgepodge areas without reference to a proper atlas.

That and Team Rocket’s now the most comedic and lighthearted interpretation or depiction of Japanese yakuza I’ve seen in any piece of modern culture.

I can’t even tell what Rainbow Rocket or GO Rocket is supposed to be.

EDIT: And there’s Pokedollar economy being relentlessly mocked in online “game humor” parodies for the longest amount of time before people started to realize it really corresponded to JPY instead of USD, but that might be an international observation.

EDIT2: Did a cursory search on Lugia to refresh my memory. Lugia was always intended to have debuted in the second movie and was created for that movie alone, but like Ho-Oh, a literal mythological phoenix, Lugia was supposed to be a dragon counterpart (though it ended up with Psy/Fly due to limitations). Lugia has vague conceptual origins in the Shintō sea patron deity Ryujin, as well as Watatsumi, considered by some believers to be the same god. I think it should be reiterated though that in the Pokémon world, “gods” are treated in the pluralistic sense along the interpretation of divine kami and demonic yōkai, which is why creator deities (Dialga and Palkia, representative stand-ins for Shintō creator gods Izanagi and Izanami respectively) can co-exist along side Pokémon like Mew (representative of a cryptid with links to ancestral and prehistoric life) and Arceus (representative of the bodhisattvic concept of absolution and an amalgamation of the general concept of creator god).

Kyogre existing as a primordial entity with the ability to create and destroy through waves is a possible reference to the Beast Leviathan of Hebrew scripture. In-universe though, both Groudon and Kyogre have been inactive for some time, so they’d be unable to act in any real capacity.

The real question you should be raising is where Manaphy fits into any of this since it’s an abomination that doesn’t really have any cryptozoological or mythological origin and yet has movie ties to Kyogre.

 

[Picklechu]

Mystery Gift code for a shiny Amoonguss dropped today, but it only works until tomorrow. Supposedly, it's EV-trained, but I haven't bothered to check yet; overall, it's a good set, especially for a Trick Room team.

TRA1NERSCUP

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

OH BOY TIME TO TARD RAGE OVER LUGIA AGAIN.

Lugia to this day irks me with its forced popularity. None of its lore and worldbuilding really makes any sense. First of all, why is it the trio master of the Kanto birds? Absolutely nothing in the main series gives an reason for it unlike Ho-oh who literally resurrected its charges.

Also there's the incongruity of it allegedly being the "guardian of the seas" yet all the thing does is sleep at the bottom of a random cave and seems to just cause storms when it's pissed or something. Compare this to Kyogre the very next gen who truly is the master of the oceans and physically proved it during the actual story by nearly flooding the entire fucking region (not to mention it actually has the proper damn type for its title and none of this Psychic/Flying nonsense).

But none of this matters because in the end, it was the one who got the favoritism, not Ho-oh. Ask Lugia fans the reasons why its one of their favorites and 99% of the time they'll cite the second movie before anything else (and to a lesser extend XD: Gale of Darkness), oftentimes barely even mentioning much about the Pokemon itself on its own merits (and if they do it's because the person is a furfag because for some reason Lugia is extremely popular with those fucks).

All Ho-oh got was a split-second cameo in the first episode and one actual movie years later and even then it had most of its screentime stolen by the token mythical of the month. No justice I tell you.

The answer you are looking for is that Ho-oh has a pretty common typing, one that isn't super great and it didn't get a good Hidden ability until Gen 5 so it had to live through..basically getting completely fucked in the ass by Stealth Rock's existence.

 

[Dunsparce]

OH BOY TIME TO TARD RAGE OVER LUGIA AGAIN.

Lugia to this day irks me with its forced popularity. None of its lore and worldbuilding really makes any sense. First of all, why is it the trio master of the Kanto birds? Absolutely nothing in the main series gives an reason for it unlike Ho-oh who literally resurrected its charges.

Also there's the incongruity of it allegedly being the "guardian of the seas" yet all the thing does is sleep at the bottom of a random cave and seems to just cause storms when it's pissed or something. Compare this to Kyogre the very next gen who truly is the master of the oceans and physically proved it during the actual story by nearly flooding the entire fucking region (not to mention it actually has the proper damn type for its title and none of this Psychic/Flying nonsense).

But none of this matters because in the end, it was the one who got the favoritism, not Ho-oh. Ask Lugia fans the reasons why its one of their favorites and 99% of the time they'll cite the second movie before anything else (and to a lesser extend XD: Gale of Darkness), oftentimes barely even mentioning much about the Pokemon itself on its own merits (and if they do it's because the person is a furfag because for some reason Lugia is extremely popular with those fucks).

All Ho-oh got was a split-second cameo in the first episode and one actual movie years later and even then it had most of its screentime stolen by the token mythical of the month. No justice I tell you.

To be fair on Lugia's lore, Lugia was designed for the second movie, and not by Game Freak themselves. They made it to be an anime-original Pokemon. Ho-oh was originally the mascot for both Gold and Silver according the the 1997 Beta of the game, Lugia or anything resembling a counterpart didn't exist. Even the person that made Lugia was surprised Game Freak decided to add it to the game as a "real" Pokemon. It was basically the same deal years later with Battle Bond Greninja, but in that case they approached Game Freak to deisign Ash-Greninja for them to give Ash a super-special anime-only(at the time) form.

 

[UntimelyDhelmise]

The answer you are looking for is that Ho-oh has a pretty common typing, one that isn't super great and it didn't get a good Hidden ability until Gen 5 so it had to live through..basically getting completely fucked in the ass by Stealth Rock's existence.

At least, come Crown Tundra, it will be better than ever before. Between being able to give any Ho-oh Regenerator (so event-exclusive moves won't be locked behind Pressure) and Heavy-Duty Boots on top of the Defog capability it already got last gen, it will be one of the best Uber mons.

To be fair on Lugia's lore, Lugia was designed for the second movie, and not by Game Freak themselves. They made it to be an anime-original Pokemon. Ho-oh was originally the mascot for both Gold and Silver according the the 1997 Beta of the game, Lugia or anything resembling a counterpart didn't exist. Even the person that made Lugia was surprised Game Freak decided to add it to the game as a "real" Pokemon. It was basically the same deal years later with Battle Bond Greninja, but in that case they approached Game Freak to deisign Ash-Greninja for them to give Ash a super-special anime-only(at the time) form.

Really? First I've heard of this, definitely would explain a lot though.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

At least, come Crown Tundra, it will be better than ever before. Between being able to give any Ho-oh Regenerator (so event-exclusive moves won't be locked behind Pressure) and Heavy-Duty Boots on top of the Defog capability it already got last gen, it will be one of the best Uber mons.

I mean Regenerator is what makes Ho-oh not terrible, it spent 2 Generations being wholly unable to switch out if Stealth Rocks are on the field, sure Lugia takes extra damage too but it is a little bit more bulky than Ho-oh is.

Also there is the fact that Moltres is also Fire/Flying so..Ho-oh is just sort of "Moltres' big brother" except with (when Silver came out) worse stats because Sacred Flame was a special attack..and Moltres has a slightly higher special attack than Ho-oh, and hey as much as you think Lugia being a mascot is strange at least Lugia is a good pokemon. Lucario is probably the dumbest "pushed mascot" they had, If only because he got cucked by Heracross of all things.

TDLR : Pokemon has always been completely fucked up and always will be. That is part of the reason I think the REEEEing about how "Bad" sword and shield was around here is hilarious. Every generation has had something completely fucked about it.

 

[Nauseated Courgi]

To be fair on Lugia's lore, Lugia was designed for the second movie, and not by Game Freak themselves. They made it to be an anime-original Pokemon. Ho-oh was originally the mascot for both Gold and Silver according the the 1997 Beta of the game, Lugia or anything resembling a counterpart didn't exist. Even the person that made Lugia was surprised Game Freak decided to add it to the game as a "real" Pokemon. It was basically the same deal years later with Battle Bond Greninja, but in that case they approached Game Freak to deisign Ash-Greninja for them to give Ash a super-special anime-only(at the time) form.

I'm going to assume this was also the case for Lycanrock Dusk?

 

[Fanatical Pragmatist]

Before I played Sapphire, I saw the designs for Latios & Latias shortly after Gen 3 came out and learned they were Psychic-Dragon. The Psychic + design + name (3 syllables, all beginning with "L") made me totally think they were going to have some connection to Lugia.

I was wrong and disappointed I couldn't catch any of the good Johto Pokemon in the game, Lugia included.

 

[Itu aru kamusu tugeza]

I mean Regenerator is what makes Ho-oh not terrible, it spent 2 Generations being wholly unable to switch out if Stealth Rocks are on the field, sure Lugia takes extra damage too but it is a little bit more bulky than Ho-oh is.

Also there is the fact that Moltres is also Fire/Flying so..Ho-oh is just sort of "Moltres' big brother" except with (when Silver came out) worse stats because Sacred Flame was a special attack..and Moltres has a slightly higher special attack than Ho-oh, and hey as much as you think Lugia being a mascot is strange at least Lugia is a good pokemon. Lucario is probably the dumbest "pushed mascot" they had, If only because he got cucked by Heracross of all things.

TDLR : Pokemon has always been completely fucked up and always will be. That is part of the reason I think the REEEEing about how "Bad" sword and shield was around here is hilarious. Every generation has had something completely fucked about it.

I guess if you look at it from a purely mechanical perspective yes, Ho-oh is a terribly designed mon kit-wise, but I maintain that Pokémon was never really meant to continue “competitively” past Gen 2, especially after Tajiri “retiring” upstairs to executive and the main development team scrambling to cobble together what remained of the formula to crank out something profitable.

Normally, I wouldn't have any problem with this line of logic, but for the sake of argument, Game Freak really fucked up by introducing the physical/special split in the first place.

A lot of these robust changes to the more intricate systems are more or less the responsibility of the battle programmer, who for the longest time has been Morimoto, I think. Egg move additions, TM indexing, changes in game mechanics, etc. All of those are his responsibility, and quite frankly it's in my personal opinion that he's been the heart of the machine cranking out QoL after QoL addition in each iterative entry.

You also have to remember though that Tajiri originally envisioned Pokémon as a one-and-done entry in a similar style to Dragon Quest, and Gold and Silver only happened due to unforseen demand, as well as their new media franchise blowing up. Especially considering just how unorganized GS was early in development and how much it changed after the Spaceworld '97 build alone thanks to just high ambitions all around, they barely made release date and were forced to scale down the scope of Gen 2 to accommodate.

Game Freak has at this point more than 20+ years of experience developing this series; Morimoto's pouring in double-time as the mechanics programmer, but it's on the conceptual and creative team (i.e. Masuda and co.) to actually draft up the roster for each entry. Now that Sword and Shield have been long past their honeymoon period, and especially being a Switch game, I think it's perfectly justified for people to voice their complaints about the game since with hindsight it's more obvious than ever that SwSh was planned to be a mediocre entry instead of an engaging one. Even Masuda himself has voiced distaste for continuing the series, going on record that the studio treats Pokémon more like a contractual obligation rather than a fun game; I assume the planning team comes up with the creative ideas and pitches them raw without much filtering these days considering all the guest artists drafted to work on the series; that's probably their idea of the most "fun" they can get out of developing what's now become a chore.

My problem with what you said lies not with that "it's fucked regardless" since that's pretty much subjective as is, but rather that "it's fucked because it's obvious now that the franchise literally does not have any clear direction apart from rehashing the formula and only iterates enough to constitute a new installment." A casual observer like me couldn't give two shits about programming nuances and bugs as long as it's not a regular occurrence or a complete detriment to the overall experience. The same can't be said about just a frustratingly obvious lack of cohesive creative direction and growingly-obvious symptoms of poor long-term planning (Bank, Home, GO as a service, DLC models, cut content, removal of QoL that could've been persistent).

We've looped completely around from GO being a mindless spinoff that wasn't supposed to last long past the initial 151 to a game that has the potential to outlast whole generations and has better longevity than the actual main games that are supposed to draw in the numbers by sheer virtue of drip-feeding content in an F2P game.
I don't think the prospect of eternally condemning your cashcow franchise to a heavily dumbed-down games-as-a-service mobile game is appealing to anyone, and anyone remotely paying attention to the community shitshow that happened during LGPE would've picked up on it too.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Also there's the incongruity of it allegedly being the "guardian of the seas" yet all the thing does is sleep at the bottom of a random cave and seems to just cause storms when it's pissed or something. Compare this to Kyogre the very next gen who truly is the master of the oceans and physically proved it during the actual story by nearly flooding the entire fucking region

Already was answered with Kyogre being in deep hibernation which makes sense, but I was under the impression it was the seas surrounding Johto and Kanto that Lugia was the guardian of. It never made sense for it to be the guardian of all the oceans, but having its territory be in one part of the world wasn't too out of the ordinary.

Had no idea Lugia was anime-only originally, though. That's actually pretty neat. Still is unnerving that movie has the only talking Slowking in existence, though.

All Ho-oh got was a split-second cameo in the first episode and one actual movie years later and even then it had most of its screentime stolen by the token mythical of the month. No justice I tell you.

I still remember when the eighth movie came out that people were going "ZOMG IT'S HO-OH, FINALLY" only for it to turn out it was Mew Transformed as Ho-Oh. Like I ain't even mad about that cop-out, but it still sucked we had to wait longer to get Ho-Oh a movie--only for it to not really be a Ho-Oh movie. Lugia's role was hilariously small in "The Power of Us", but at least it had a connection to the setting. Couldn't tell you what Ho-Oh's role in "I Choose You" was even supposed to be.

I wish Lugia and Ho-Oh had themselves a proper battle, though. I'm still mad that the 13th movie teaser trailer had that but it was just to promote the remakes and not be a movie itself. I just want some Legendary clashes again, dammit.

Anyhoo yeah, I'll be that Pokéfag who says she was happy she got Silver for Christmas because of Lugia, but I still wish I had Gold as well. I just really loved Johto in general, would've been great to have gotten another version. (Although if we had waited another year, perhaps my brothers could've gotten Gold and Crystal for themselves like how we had Red, Blue and Yellow between us. Oh well, least the remakes were so well-done.)