Topic: Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee!

Someone brought up the Battle Royal mode? Oh boy!

RANT TIME:

So most of you probably aren't aware, but a popular thing among players the past few years (let's say around the time of X/Y onward) has been a fanmade mode called Free For Alls, where 4 players go into a multibattle, but instead of treating it like a double battle, everyone is trying to kill each other to be last man standing. What's the greatest about this "mode" is that you can use any, and I do mean ANY Pokemon and potentially come out on top just by the sheer dynamics (big and powerful mons tend to get targeted to death quickly while more unassuming ones can go untouched for example), so there's no "tiers" regarding what you can and can't lose. Also it's generally played with voice chat so there can be discussion about plays, alliances, deception, all that type of verbal strategy.

Now, this has some inherent problems, namely some spread moves not affecting the person next to you, hazards/screens only helping/hindering one side of the field (in fact many circles ban the latter two for that reason), certain moves just flat out not affecting the player beside you (for example the countering moves and Destiny Bond), and the potential of a game ending too early if one side of the field is out of mons before the other (though smart players know how to avoid this in most cases).

Fast forward to SM, and the official Royal mode seemed poised to solve all those problems. Except, while it DID fix them, it added a bunch of others. Namely, the point system and the rule of the game ending once someone's out of mons. The point system in particular ruins the "any mon can win" concept to its core because now using weaker mons is a liability as people will gun for anything to nab points, plus the latter rule also undermines the last man standing mentality while also generally shortening games well before their time. In fact they messed it up so badly that nobody plays the mode and went back to how they did it before in the Doubles format.

So now the sad part is we'll probably never get a proper FFA mode as GF will just look at the lack of popularity of Royals and not step back to fix it, instead opting to can the mode altogether (though even if it was popular they'd still probably can it anyway given their propensity of removing well-liked features between gens to maintain their BS "every gen has to be unique" moniker).

Battle facilities are the exact opposite of what I'm talking about. They're rigid, set, and don't offer any actual feeling of progression. I'm talking GSC/HGSS post gameplay content, but tailored towards strong trainers. Kanto was pretty mediocre, but that's because of the lack of overall narrative to drive you through it, along with subpar movesets and stat spreads for the gym leaders.

I'd love a meaty main quest too, but people complained about how long it took to get through Alola and its focus on narrative. I fear that they're going to go back to giving us X and Y styled narratives. I just hope they decide to compensate for all of this by adding on a huge bulk of narrative content onto the post game for players that actually like a JRPG to play like a JRPG.

Given the announcement about the 3DS being supported even after 2019 combined with the already known knowledge of some Switch games getting 3DS ports, I'm becoming more convinced that Pokemon Switch will be a joint Switch/3DS release.

That sounds like a cool idea. I'll probably get this Pokeman game for Switch. I didn't play this series on older systems.

@Grumblevolcano But GF already said repeatedly Pokemon is done on 3DS now.

@Grumblevolcano it will mostly be supported with remakes/demakes of older games, like luigi's mansion and Mario & Luigi bowsers inside story.

So, I was going through the Pikachu-alikes after reading that article about a scrapped third evolution for Pikachu. Obviously there are a billion different forms of Pikachu and we'll be getting another one in 8th gen. I actually like the Pikachu family since it reminds me of how Monster Hunter classifies different groups of wyverns. But anyway, not all of these are in the Pikachu family, I just wanted to list them all to give us perspective on what the 8th gen 'chu could be like:

Gen 1: Pikachu, Raichu, & (Gorochu)
2: Pichu
3: Plusle, Minun, & Volt Tackle
4: Pachirisu, Spiky-Eared Pichu
5: Emolga
6: Dedenne, Cosplay Pikachu
7: Togedemaru, Mimikyu, Alolan Raichu, Pikachu in a Cap, Let's Snuggle Forever, Stoked Sparksurfer, Catastropika, 10 Million Volt Thunderbolt

Since 7th gen went Pika-crazy I think we can expect something similar in Pokemon Switch. Hopefully they don't go with the ball-shaped mouse designs for the new single evolution not-Pikachu again, as those didn't appeal to me much. It'd be cool if Z-moves returned and were added onto, but they'll probably just stay in and become ignored like mega evolution, et al.

@Haru17 Mimikyu hardly counts I think. I mean, it's imitating Pikachu, but it's not one of them.

@Octane I said they wouldn't all be part of the Pikachu family. Let's not be pedantic – it's clearly tagging onto the Pikachu brand and was used in Sun and Moon's marketing as such.

Pachirisu is still probably my favorite Pikachu clone.

One thing that I would love to see for Pokémon Switch, given it’s on a split-screen capable console, is the ability for another player to pick up a controller and lets say sign into their account, allowing both trainers to play independently in the same world. Running side by side getting into individual Pokémon encounters, trading Pokémon and items anytime at anywhere, and even progressing through the story independently or cooperatively.

@-Green- Pachirisu is also the only clone who actually feels like they have an identity of their own in my opinion. Or well, Emolga does too to a degree, but not as distinctly as Pachirisu. Still, those two are clearly better than the recent Dedenne and Togedemaru, and the previous Plusle and Minun and Pichu.

People remember Pachirisu because of VGC where it was the cornerstone of the winners team. THAT gets noticed.

Emolga is a competively viable critter but also isn't "Just" an Electric type. Plus its actually got decent stats alongside that rare type.

Dedenne...eh. Fairy is nice. Its more of a HP sponge than anything I feel especially with Cheek Pouch.

Togedemaru is adorable, and a new Electric/Steel type is very welcome as it is THE type with the most resistances and immunities. It just cant do a lot compared to Magnezone.

The sad thing about Dedenne is the Fairy type was literally slapped on because it was the new fancy type. By that I mean it only learns one solitary Fairy attacking move (Play Rough), but its best offensive stat is Special. That's how little thought GF put into the poor thing.

So, according to this guy -

• PokeSwitch is a reboot set 100 years in the past, involving a Kanto submerged under water. Wow.

Don't know if this is the right place for this sort of thing, or if anyone cares but I found it ridiculously entertaining, as rumors go. Warning: the YouTuber is from Spain and the video is completely in Spanish, as are the twitter users he links to and most of his sources. Thoughts?

@Huracan It's fake. He original leaker calls him Piuk, and he claims to be part of the Italian translating team (which I doubt is a large group, so why even reveal that in the first place?). He also claimed Nintendo would reveal a Flying and Ground type Eevee evolution, and according to his original rumour, the games were supposed to be set on an island, with the two legendary Pokemon being snakes. He has quite a lot of detailed 'leaks'. So him doing a 180 and claiming it's a Kanto reboot tells me enough. He's just making stuff up as he goes.

So everyone, there’s more or less a month left before we find out more about this game. I still think it is coming out this year, and I can’t really see it being announced at E3. If that’s the case, then we should be getting an announcement in late May or early June.

Less than a month left if 2018, many months left if 2019.

@Octane They should save the snake legendary for mexico due to the mayan have a legend about a fearthered snake.

@andrew20 Many cultures have legends and myths about snakes...