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Esserise
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  • Is that a Megaloceros skeleton? I was obsessed with prehistory as a child and had a book of extinct species.
    Esserise
    Esserise
    I believe it is, yeah. In truth, I wanted my new avatar to be a picture of a busted up cassette tape sitting in its case, but I lacked the resources to produce such an image in real life. So instead I googled "public domain images," found this as one of the first results, and went with it because it seemed like a cool convergence of some previous avatars I've used.

    I actually only first heard about Megaloceros last year when playing Animal Crossing. It piqued my interest too, because I feel like I only ever see ancient skeletons of dinosaurs and mammoths and homonids and such.
    What's the story behind PATRISHAAAH! the Cutiefly? I'm curious because PATRISHAAAH! is an in-joke in my family as well, believe it or not.
    Esserise
    Esserise
    Weird coincidence. For us it's just something we picked up from a CrankGamePlays video my wife was watching where he was feigning a bad British accent and shouted the name out. For some reason, that stuck.
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    Puddle
    Puddle
    I guess Patricia/Patrisha is just a really good name to yell? My story is that I have an aunt with that name, and my granny used to yell it when she was a girl. My mum and granny were laughing one day about how she used to do that, and I - being only about five at the time - got the wrong end of the stick, and thought that there was something inherently rude or funny about shouting the name Patricia. So when I was staying the night at my other grandmother's house, I jumped up and down on the bed and shouted "PATRISHAAAH!", thinking it would elicit some kind of reaction.
    I remember you called her your girlfriend until recently, so belated congratulations for whenever you got married!
    Esserise
    Esserise
    Actually your congratulations are pre-lated! I'm jumping the gun ever so slightly, because the legal formalities still need to be taken care of, but it is inevitable at this point and I'm keen to just get in the habit of it. But all the same, thanks! :)
    Check out my blog for my LGPE review.

    I know that you have no reason to believe me at this point, but I really am going to resume writing this month. I do not want to exceed the "1-year hiatus" mark.
    Esserise
    Esserise
    First off, apologies - I seem to have missed the notification for this message.

    Yeah, I realized my mistake about the LGPE entries pretty much right away, but the very moment that I went to edit it was when the thread got locked. In any case, I'm just very dubious about the importance of Pokédex entries in general. Perhaps it's just me projecting my own bias, but when I was young I never cared about reading them because I wanted to get right back to the game as quick as possible, and I always feel like other kids would be likely to do that as well. I could certainly be wrong - obviously Game Freak put more effort into them than ever before with SM's Pokédex. But even still, they're just a sentence or two of flavor text, and I don't think Game Freak would let that hold them back if they had some Big Thematic Idea in mind for a new game. Granted that it's not quite the same thing, but for example, the idea that Mew was the ancestor to all Pokémon didn't stop them from creating Arceus (unfortunately).

    I just think that if they wanted to do mascots that represented the seasons, they'd be more likely to create new ones from scratch than to promote two of the birds.

    As far as the birds being affiliated with Lugia goes, I keep wondering about how Game Freak really feel about that idea. The Sea Spirit's Den does allude to it, and I think there was a HGSS commercial that showed Lugia flying with the birds, but I don't think the idea itself was Game Freak's own original notion in the sense that you could like, pull out their reference sheets and concept documents and find it noted on there. While they haven't exactly been opposed to making references to the anime within the games, it has always been in more minor ways like Easter eggs - maybe they're not as comfortable with letting ideas from other arms of the franchise "override" their original concepts? On balance, I do think Lugia being linked to the birds makes a lot of sense, and it has become so deeply ingrained in the wider fan-consciousness that it may as well be canon. I wish that they'd just pull the trigger and confirm it explicitly.

    My understanding is that Solgaleo and Lunala are essentially just aliens that can store/manipulate light. I haven't really seen anything in the games to suggest that they have an innate connection of Earth's sun or moon, and I don't really see how they would, considering that they seem to originate from Ultra Space. Based on what the games say, I think the ancient Alolan people lacked the context of their origin (they just appeared in the sky one day), and so interpreted them as emissaries of the sun and moon because of their body shapes and because of how they interacted with light. If anything, I think it would be Earth's sun or moon that has an influence on them rather than the other way around - right now, Cosmoem's evolution is based on whether you're playing Sun or Moon, but if in future games they make it so that Cosmoem evolves depending on the time of day, you could interpret that to mean that Cosmoem's evolutionary pathway is determined by the kind of light that it absorbs (sunlight or moonlight, which is sort of implied already because Nebby gets suffused with one or the other, magnified through the Altar, and becomes the emissary that matches that kind of light). Granted, the Pokédex implies that it's actually determined by gender, but I think the phrasing in it makes that sound like more of a human perception.
    Silktree
    Silktree
    I just think that if they wanted to do mascots that represented the seasons, they'd be more likely to create new ones from scratch than to promote two of the birds.
    Of course, but they shouldn't use such mascots to begin with. The "let's prevent a bad guy from changing the season" concept would be derivative, although "let's bring back four seasons instead of just one" might work. You can guess that I am not a fan of the idea.

    Regarding Lugia, it didn't even exist in the Spaceworld demo, and Takeshi Shudo (the head writer of the original anime) claimed to have suggested the concept (probably in late 1998):
    Dogasu said:
    Screenplay writer Shudou Takeshi asked the game designers if he could create a new pokemon to act as a fourth legendary who represents the deep sea currents and, much to his surprise, they said yes. Shudou Takeshi doesn't actually state on his blog that he was the one who designed or even named the pokemon but it seems like the overall idea of "legendary pokemon who represents the sea" did come from him.
    With that in mind, I am not sure that Game Freak ever had a concept that predated the movie, as odd as that might be (they were planning a March 1998 release). The Johto games only had one reference to the bird trio:
    Do you know about the legendary bird Pokemon? Whew! You're hot stuff. Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres are the three legendary bird Pokemon. I heard there are other legendary birds, though.
    It's worth noting that even the prototype maps in the final games lacked Cianwood City... Lake of Rage had a gym instead. What I'm getting at is that Lugia's lore was an afterthought, but it worked out pretty well thanks to the movie and the popular design.
    Silktree
    Silktree
    Have a look at my ideas for the "ideal" Kanto remakes, which will probably never exist. I posted this on Reddit because there was only one response to my blog entry, but little did I know that I'd be roasted for not giving Kanto a rest. My bad.

    Many of these ideas could be applied to Let's Go Johto, though.
    "I’m not really expecting direct sequels at this point,"

    Why do you think that? Because USUM worked out well for them? Movie 20?
    Silktree
    Silktree
    The difference is that RGBY have already been remade, albeit much more faithfully than the above examples. I feel that Game Freak would have to go very far to promote a new set of remakes as very different, and that could easily lead to some desperate moves. Sequels would be much easier to pull off intuitively. Not to mention that they wouldn't repeat USUM's concept just a year later.

    And what about the endings of the Alola games? It would be one thing to ignore SM Lillie, but do you see Rainbow Giovanni ending up reliving his past in a different universe? With yet another Giovanni acting as a (humbler) villain? Having two Giovanni would only serve a point if one of them weren't a villain at all. That would make sense in sequels, but would feel very forced in a reimagining.
    Esserise
    Esserise
    I’m just keeping my expectations at the bottom. In hindsight, I think I was kinda burned by the direction they took with SM/USUM, and I still have my doubts about their ability to handle this project. Sequels are what I *want*, yeah, but I think they very well could just take USUM’s concept to a higher level and apply it to RBY and get people to lick it up. Haven’t USUM actually worked out pretty well for them, for what they are? The Internet fans didn’t like them, but last I heard, they were selling well. And even though you *are* right in that it makes more sense to drop RR Giovanni onto a sequel, forcing something less organic and/or sensible into the plot would hardly be a new turn for them to take.

    I’d love for them to do something that really impresses me here, but I just can’t get myself to count on it yet.
    Silktree
    Silktree
    Sure, that's understandable. It just makes more sense to go the extra mile for the first Switch project than for the last 3DS one. I doubt that USUM will surpass B2W2's sales (although the difference won't be big), and the former had a weaker base in BW.

    I can (easily) make do without new Pokemon and (begrudgingly) accept no Johto, but I am not going to buy a Switch if Game Freak prove to be allergic to sequels.
    Chapter 7 is up. I am not sure if you've read Chapter 6.
    Esserise
    Esserise
    Ahhh, I’d forgotten that Mayson was Chieko. Thanks for clearing that up. Ohhh, and that’s a good idea, looking at the biology of Ghost Pokémon. I’m interested in seeing how you’ll interpret that.

    Those bee-drones are a really nice design.

    Regarding the Switch, the discussion is all so dull, but I’m especially tired of the Spain meme. I’m not expecting an announcement for another month or so, personally, although I don’t even have high expectations for the game to begin with.

    Alan? I think I need to see a bit more to really get a take on him. I can see the need for that kind of personality, and I’m willing to be patient with it to see where he goes. Actually, he kind of reminds me somewhat of my younger brother - very much an enthusiastic techie who isn’t too interested in the kind of stuff that I lean toward (detail, story, history, etc.), but gets very excited if you show some interest in his stuff.

    Yeah, Lyra has stood out to me quite a bit because you give her that degree of... how to put it... acidulousness. Admittedly, while I do *prefer* Kris in terms of the game, I don’t have any particular animosity toward Lyra. I just don’t really understand why she exists. Regardless, I think the way you’re writing her is *far* more compelling as a characterization, and the rivalry does sound like an idea with potential.

    I have indeed noticed the consistent inclusion of romantic tones in the 3DS games, though I’m not really sure what to make of it. It’s just kinda there.

    As far as USUM Giovanni goes, ahh... I’m not sure. My impression, on first watch, was that he was simply a Giovanni who succeeded in defeating Red/Leaf (lol indeed), so the battle didn’t really stand out to him. It was just pest control, and he’s gone on to do much more significant things since then. But, I saw somebody else interpret his dialogue to mean that he was never opposed by a young Trainer at all (which would certainly fit with the general suggestion that these guys come from worlds in which the protagonists never existed to begin with). And to some extent that makes sense to me as well - he says “such a thing should never happen” in regards to being opposed by a kid, and doesn’t seem to know *why* it’s making him feel nostalgic. The nostalgia could just be the dialogue leaning on the fourth wall, and his remark about being opposed by a kid could be read either way, depending on where you put the emphasis - “such a thing” could suggest that he’s speaking about the scenario hypothetically and hasn’t experienced it before in reality, or, “should never happen” could be read as saying that young Trainers like this *shouldn’t* be opposing him, but they keep doing it. I don’t know, it’s an oddly ambiguous line, for sure. I’ll need to mull it over some more.

    But I do agree that, for god’s sake, they need to do something more interesting with him next time. What’s the use of all these multidimensional shenanigans if they’re not going to use it to see how certain characters changed if they took a different path? I mean, I guess USUM sort of did that by changing the ending, but if that’s the extent of what they think they can do with the concept, then that’s pretty sad.
    Silktree
    Silktree
    He was actually very nonchalant about losing to the USUM kid. I guess he's looking for a world without strong kids? Where did his teleporter device even come from? Presumably Aether, but they relied on Nebby...
    Silktree
    Silktree
    Speaking of Spain, someone has just linked to two theory videos, lol.

    The thing people should remember is that, well, the basis of a region has never been foreshadowed before. How useful were the "reverse waterfall" and Strange Souvenir? They were too broad. Using movie Ash's shirt to allude to the next region... I mean, come on.
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