Topic: Pokémon Sun & Moon - Discussion & Speculation

So what do you think we'll get in the next Corocoro issue? The starters? Silhouettes of the starters? The mascot legendaries?

I think we'll get the starters. Please no silhouettes this time.

@IceClimbers: I think we will get Silhouettes of the Playable Male/Female characters and a few paragraphs talking very vaguely about the game.

Probably starters and/or mascots, I'm not expecting much until May/June.

This. But one can hope.

Maybe instead of the starters, the mascot-like cool new Pokemon (like Lucario, Zoroark and Sylveon).

I'd personally like more Pokemon for the more obscure types. With a full evolutionary line, 1-2-3. For some reason I greatly prefer Pokemon that can evolve to a third form. I'd like another ghost line, a full fairy line, maybe a good dual type rock Pokemon to balance rocks weaknesses. Also, at least 80 new Pokemon. XY had too few, kind of dulled my sense of discovery.

Sylveon isn't really comparable to Lucario and Zoroark. There was no equivalent to those two in 6th gen.

Sylveon was revealed super early on, and its featured prominently in many gen 6 spinoffs and promotional materials. That's what I meant by mascot-like, not that it was designed to be the "omg so cool and edgy" Pokemon of the gen, or an actual mascot.

it was the new eeve-volution for Gen 6. they promoted it. just because it didn't get a movie doesn't equate to it not being a mascot

The things I want most with these games are a poison type legendary, and a dark type gym leader.

They really do need stronger Poison types and more offensive Steel types to help solidify the balance they attempted to create with Fairy, if they want to encourage people to use the typing they need to improve the type itself to make it worth using. A Poison type legendary, maybe a Poison pseudo legendary as well, and a couple of strong Poison Megas and some new Pokemon would help things a lot. Some new moves might also help.

Maybe Mega Goodra could be part poison... not sure how that would affect Goodra's balance but Goodra looks like he is made of slim which normally means poison lol

I wonder if we'll get a few more moves that inflect status conditions not associated with their type. Paralysis can be caused by quite a variety of non Electric moves (Force Palm, Dragon Breath, Bounce, etc.). Scald was an interesting addition in Gen V, but otherwise Burn is pretty much a Fire-Type only status condition (excluding Legendary signature moves). Poison seems like it could potentially be inflicted by a 'Filthy Water' type move, or maybe a Grass type thorn-based move. Or perhaps a Psychic move could inflict Paralysis.

I also think a Steel/Poison Pokemon with a sort of barbed wire aesthetic would be cool.

As an aside, my battle theme is pretty much finished! Hooray!

Mega Goodra being Dragon/Poison would be interesting, but it doesn't have a lot of Poison moves, so they would need to fix its moveset to make it viable. That, and give it a significant boost in Special Attack to make it stand out.

And even with Mega Goodra, they'd need more than just one Pokemon to fix the type. My point is that they'd need to make several changes for Poison to be viable, multiple Pokemon, multiple Megas, and stronger moves. Like, if they gave us Mega Goodra + 1 other good Poison type Mega + a couple of strong new Poison types in 7th gen + some new 100+ BP Poison moves then Poison would be set. But then that might take 2 or 3 generations to reach that point, just like it took types like Dragon and Ghost until around 3rd/4th gen to really develop.

....Meh, might as well say something...
I dunno, I think the series is running stale on me...they keep adding and removing features (some of them I really enjoyed)...Omega Ruby didn't really have that much for me to come back to it. X/Y had customization, the DS generation (can't remember exactly which one, lol) had that awesome Pokemon World Tournament.

Anyways, kinda wished they gave us more info on the games instead of just titles. :c

Anyone want them to ditch the whole "friends on a journey" schtick they've been using? Like, I don't care about Cheren, Bianca, Serena, or any of the other pointless "friends" whose names I can't even remember.

The reason the jerk rival worked is because by being a jerk, the rival gave the player a reason to dislike him within a very brief amount of time. Friendly characters take a lot more time to develop, and the circumstances in most Pokemon games aren't really serious enough for me to get that invested. The closest thing I've had to actually caring about a friend character is in X/Y when Serena accompanies you to Lysandre's base. You feel actual stakes, and she is actually productively helping you. Unless Pokemon games can do this for the whole game though, I can't see friends working well.

That's not to mention how the idea of friends accompanying you on your journey flies straight in the face of the phrase "your very own Pokemon legacy".

@iKhan: Yeah, I found the whole 'existing friends' thing a bit tacked on. It definitely hinders the feeling that you're starting on your own journey from scratch, when your character is supposedly part of some existing gang of people that you're meant to be fond of. It's like you have to continue commitments from a previous part of your character's life that you weren't a part of.

I'm all for meeting characters along the way, and having them become a meaningful part of your adventure, but I felt X&Y's bunch of chums brought little more to the game than social baggage.

And I think you're spot on about why the rival works:

"You've been rivals since you were little"

"Have we?"

"Yes"

//Actually meets rival//

"Oh yeah, that's quite easy to believe. What a jerk."

It's funny cause I just finished Y last night and was thinking how I kinda liked the friends deal. Granted I haven't really played pokemon since the original emerald. Just seemed fresh to me.

Still it could have been empamented better. Also at first I didn't like how empty the story felt until my mind start filling in the gaps with stories for my charecter as I played (I know sounds weird but it's somthing I do in rpgs).

I think having a jerk rival took away from Team Rocket overall. It felt like anyone I come across just wants me to lose. It is nice to run into friendly people that want to battle too. Not having a Jerk Rival does take away some of the appeal of having a rival but it did give the Big Bad more priority in the story. I wonder if having two rivals, a friendly and a jerk, as well as a Big Bad would balance things out better.

It's more like... Gamefreak doesn't know how to write friends well. There's alotta potential there to create likeable friends characters (just look at how Atlus does it... even Intelligent Systems writes characters so well). Gamefreak is just sloppy with it.