If You Could Change a Pokémon...

[Norzan]

Special attacks also have the benefit of not triggering abilities that trigger on contact like Iron Barbs and Aftermath, and also not trigger stuff like King's Shield. So i can see why their moves have overall less base power and accuracy compared to physical moves.

Spoiler

Why does Stone Edge have such poor accuracy though?

 

[Enzo]

Why does Stone Edge have such poor accuracy though?

Two things:

-It's a 100 base power move that offers no drawbacks to the user and has a high critical hit ratio.
-Well, throwing stones is not exactly a super precise thing, is it?

So Stone Edge has a lower than average accuracy simply because it makes sense both thematically and as a way of balancing the move so it doesn't gets too op.

 

[prog rocker]

-It's a 100 base power move that offers no drawbacks to the user and has a high critical hit ratio.

This explains why this move is my worst nightmare...

 

[BigBadButterfree]

Not just one pokemon, necessarily, but I really hate some of th way they've handled gender in the games. I don't like Pokemon that only have one gender and no counterpart. If I could make my own fixes, every pokemon of a single gender would have another Pokemon to breed either with, like Nidoran and Volbeat/Illumise. I still don't understand why Tauros and Miltank aren't like this, they're even listed together in the gen 7 Pokedex.

Other cases I would change... Braviary and Mandibuzz. First of all, why are they even gendered that way? I wouldn't make them breedable like the others, simply because neither of them should be gender-locked like that anyway. Aside from a couple design choices on Mandibuzz, I so no reason why they both shouldn't be either gender.

The Dawn stone evolutions... Bug me. Either Gardevoir should be female only, or Gallade should be able to be female as well. The same/opposite goes for Froslass and Glalie.

Why do pokemon like Jynx and Tsareena not have counterparts? I know they don't *need* one, but it bugs me. Same for the Hitmon family and the Florges line, etc. I don't like the thought that "this pokemon is inherently feminine, so it can only be female."

Hatenna and Impidimp... They could be like the Nidorans but they're not. So I'd either make them breedable that way, or give them either gender.

Now, in the opposite direction... One pokemon that I actually think SHOULD have been gender locked this way... Lanturn. For anyone unaware, actual anglerfish like this are the females. Males are teeny tiny semi-parasitic fish that just attach to the giant female. I suppose maybe that could be the logic for those other one-gendered pokemon without a counterpart, but... Idk, I know it's fictional, but some scientific accuracy would just make me happy.

And lastly, on the topic of gender, although I've severely deviated from the original topic, more pokemon should have gender differences. I loved when gen 4 gave a bunch of subtle differences to old Pokemon, and I hate that only a handful nowadays get any at all. I do like that they're much more drastic differences, but I'd still appreciate some slight variations, especially in some like Sawsbuck or Copperajah, etc.

Tldr: gender in Pokemon is a mess.

 

[prog rocker]

Why do pokemon like Jynx and Tsareena not have counterparts? I know they don't *need* one, but it bugs me. Same for the Hitmon family and the Florges line, etc. I don't like the thought that "this pokemon is inherently feminine, so it can only be female."

Well, Jynx was apparently* getting a counterpart in Gen I, but it got cut. Aside from that her counterparts were Electabuzz and Magmar, at least until Gen IV.

*This is speculation on my part based on the yeti Pokémon sprite.

 

[BigBadButterfree]

Well, Jynx was apparently* getting a counterpart in Gen I, but it got cut. Aside from that her counterparts were Electabuzz and Magmar, at least until Gen IV.

*This is speculation on my part based on the yeti Pokémon sprite.

I always felt like Mr. Mime should have been male only and her counterpart... But that was never the case, and further got ruined going into gen 8 lol

I guess I just need to get over the biological basis of Pokemon and just embrace the more supernatural/fantastical basis of many of them. Like I guess whatever Jynx is based off is female-only, like some Japanese Yo-kai, and in that sense I guess it belongs as female only. It still bugs me when they don't have a counterpart though. And I know Magmar and Electabuzz were kind of a trip with her before gem 4, but I'm specifically talking about gender relationships here.

Edit: silly typo

 

[Poke Dragon]

For Taurus and Miltank, it's kind of understandable when you look at cows and bulls. All cows are female and all bulls are male, but regardless of naming, they are still the same animal species.

 

[prog rocker]

I always felt like Mr. Mike should have been male only and her counterpart... But that was never the case, and further got ruined going into gen 8 lol

Well, Mr. Mime was a case of "screwed by the translation" according to Nob Ogasawara. He raised the possibility back then that they could add genders in the next game, but he was apparently ignored.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

For Taurus and Miltank, it's kind of understandable when you look at cows and bulls. All cows are female and all bulls are male, but regardless of naming, they are still the same animal species.

Yes, but the issue @BigBadButterfree has with those two isn't that they're gender restricted, it's that Miltank eggs for some reason can't hatch baby Tauros despite it being heavily implied that Miltank and Tauros are the female and male of the same species. Same deal with Hattarenne and Grimmsnarl lines.

 

[BigBadButterfree]

Well, Mr. Mime was a case of "screwed by the translation" according to Nob Ogasawara. He raised the possibility back then that they could add genders in the next game, but he was apparently ignored.

I'm fully aware of the translation thing, it's original name has no gender distinction. However, the fact that it was seen as more masculine by the translation team, I feel like it could've become male-only. And it and Jynx both being psychic type humanoids just makes me think they should've been grouped together that way. They even have design similarities, like the hands! And not just that, they complement each other. Mr. Mime is, well, a mime. Which are silent. Even has soundproof. Jynx is known for singing, possibly even based off an opera singer. Very much tied to sound. They could've accentuated that dichotomy.

But, as mentioned before, that hope had been dashed by gen 8.

 

[Cute Charm]

Jynx is just a weird outlier. Maybe they just never considered her being Mr. Mime's counterpart since it's possible the Yeti was Jynx and not a male counterpart. Like, it's possible that Yeti!Jynx came before Mr. Mime. But when Mr. Mime was designed, they shaved Jynx to make it closer in design to Mr. Mime so it wasn't the odd one out. Especially since Electabuzz and Magmar were already more monster than humanoid. But then they shaved it too much and now Jynx either wasn't gender neutral enough or just because the Kaiju the Yeti!Jinx is rumored to be based on is female.

Which might be the latter because the wiki page I linked to has this picture from a 1990 Ultraman anime OVA:

Spoiler

Slap a dress on it and it looks similar to the Jynx we got.

 

[prog rocker]

I think the feminine one was going to be Mr. Mime, considering it's original name was Ballerina, a name that was later used for Spaceworld's Mime Jr.

 

[Yami-no-Game]

I would've given Seadra a more dragon-like design similar to what beta Kingdra looked like and made it half Dragon type in Gen 1.

 

[WyndonCalling]

Speaking of, I would have had Galarian Mime retain the original Kantonian stat distribution and work on turning Mr Rime into something quite a bit scarier. It's sad that the head of new three-stage Ice-type line has an almost exact same stat distribution as Vanilluxe, when it had everything going for it to create a tasty offensive threat.

 

[Puddle]

To this day, I still don't understand why Tynamo and its evolutions aren't part Water-type. They are based on electric eels after all.

An interview regarding the Unovan Pokémon revealed that a lot of the typing for the Pokémon was considered, and reconsidered, for balance purposes. For example, Stunfisk was originally going to be a Water/Electric type, but they changed the Water typing to Ground for balance purposes. I don't know if the Tynamo line were considered to be Water-types during development, but three more Water-types was something they were likely trying to avoid.

From Gen 5 onwards we've seen quite a few Pokemon that are based on aquatic animals, but aren't Water type: the Sandile, Dwebble, Tynamo, Stunfisk, Inkay, Crabrawler, Nihilego and Clobbopus families, as well as Dragalge (but not Skrelp). Most of these Pokemon live on land, unlike their real-world counterparts. It does seem like they're trying to rebalance the game by reducing the amount of Water types that are introduced.

 

[Jimothy]

My understanding is that Crabrawler is actually based on a crab species (coconut crab) that lives on land and not the water, so that one tracks, actually.

Inkay always seemed super weird to not be marine-dwelling, but intentionally weird.

 

[nickdt]

My understanding is that Crabrawler is actually based on a crab species (coconut crab) that lives on land and not the water, so that one tracks, actually.

Inkay always seemed super weird to not be marine-dwelling, but intentionally weird.

At least Pokemon Snap rectified this.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

I'd change Greninja. I'd remove the scarf tongue and replace it with the frubbles so the design is more consistent with Froakie and Frogadier, making it a long bubble scarf instead of a weird tongue scarf.

 

[Enzo]

I'd change Greninja. I'd remove the scarf tongue and replace it with the frubbles so the design is more consistent with Froakie and Frogadier, making it a long bubble scarf instead of a weird tongue scarf.

You know, I don't hate the tongue scarf thing, since it does makes sense for a frog-ninja mix character, but it's just that the bubbles in both Frogadier and Froakie worked so much better and were this perfect mix of cool and cute, that when you put the tongue as a substitute in the final form just looks weird.

 

[Greninjaman]

I'd change Greninja. I'd remove the scarf tongue and replace it with the frubbles so the design is more consistent with Froakie and Frogadier, making it a long bubble scarf instead of a weird tongue scarf.

You know, I don't hate the tongue scarf thing, since it does makes sense for a frog-ninja mix character, but it's just that the bubbles in both Frogadier and Froakie worked so much better and were this perfect mix of cool and cute, that when you put the tongue as a substitute in the final form just looks weird.

Why not both?