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Does GameFreak keep running themselves into a corner?

Yamato-san

yandere=awesome
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so, as we should all probably be able to assume by now, the roster of Pokemon, as well as their moves and abilities, are pretty much permanent for each and every future iteration of this series. However, does it seem to you like GameFreak has a tendency to incorporate some gimmick with several of these Pokemon that, regardless of how much usage said gimmick actually gets, they're now forced to use from now on due to the way it affects the Pokemon within the roster? Let's see what we have so far:

-Baby Pokemon. All those introduced past generation 2 have to be obtained with an incense item. While it's commendable that GameFreak apparently tries to stay consistent with previous generations by explaining why the evolved Pokemon were hatching from eggs in the first place, it seems a little unnecessary when they're being forced to make these items accessible in some way within every game. At least with generation 5, they've wizened up a little and just made them easily accessible from a shop, rather than littering them along the ground in various places.

-Forme changes and area-specific evolutions. As with Baby Pokemon, these require either an item or some kind of event to take place (like going up to a meteorite or appliance). Sure, in generation 3, they just had Deoxys with one form per game (form differences still being relatively new at this point), but once generation 4 hit, they've kinda gone out of their way to incorporate all of them within a single game, even in spite of the fact that they introduced new forms for Giratina, Shaymin, and Rotom MID-GENERATION. This kinda caused some trading issues, and Heart/Soul kinda needed to incorporate these form-changing methods as well due to coming out after Platinum (though, they didn't HAVE to include a way of changing Deoxys's form as well, since you could just as well trade one from DPPt, just like how certain Pokemon can't evolve in HGSS). With a new generation, all the trading issues should be resolved, but Shaymin Sky Forme is still locked to whatever games have a Gracidea Flower, and due to the items from the previous generation being cut off, they still need to somehow incorporate all the items within Black and White once again. Also, there's no telling whether they'll introduce mid-generation forms again (though common speculation is that they will do so for Kyurem). Location-specific evolutions are also tricky, as now every generation (though not necessarily every game) will have to incorporate an area that allows them somehow.

-Honey. I'm not sure if anyone's willing to argue otherwise, but a lot of us really didn't enjoy slathering this shit on the trees and waiting. Apparently, this concept was abandoned as early as HGSS, but there's a bit of a problem: one of the Pokemon's abilities revolves around randomly carrying honey after a battle (and now, yet another one via the Dream World). I guess they've kinda sidestepped the issue by just leaving Honey in the game as a slightly useless item (made all the more useless due to Mitsuhoney/Combee learning Sweet Scent, so even the effect of attracting wild Pokemon is lost) that could be sold for a very pisspoor amount of money. Poor Mitsuhoney, got stuck with an ability that's now pretty much completely useless.

-Hold items. Although I won't say there's a rule that items are unchanging between generations (we lost a few between generations 2 and 3, like Berserk Gene, and we also lost generation 3's E-reader berries, not to mention Key Items being restricted to their respective games), they nonetheless seem to have stayed consistent in keeping Pokemon-specific hold items (like Light Ball and Thick Club), not to mention items required for evolution. This probably isn't too much of a problem, just a few more bits of data in the game's listings, but if they decide to start off a new generation with the items cut off (like generation 5 did), they need to incorporate some method of finding these items once more. As of right now, Latias and Latios are missing their Soul Dew in generation 5, though we can bet they'll get it back in a future game release. At least Arceus has access to his Plates (though they're only one-per-game right now).

-Berries. While originally introduced in generation 2 as some shapeless objects that heal a status condition or whatever, they had a lot more flavor (no pun intended) inserted into them in generation 3. Not only that, but they introduced several berries solely for the purpose of being used for Contests. While in Emerald, they added an EV-reducing affect to some of these, a lot of them were still contest-exclusive.... and then generation 4 came and introduced Natural Gift, an attack where the typing and power solely relies on what berry's being held. Generation 5 seems to have complicated things by removing Contests and having berries grown in the Dream World. So far as I know, not all the berries are currently available after the item cut-off this gen, but they'll probably incorporate them eventually (especially if Ruby/Sapphire remakes actually do happen). On a similar note, I thought that Hinbass/Feebas's evolution relying on its Beauty stat would've ensured Contests remaining, but apparently, they got around this. In HGSS, they made haircuts increase the stat, and now in generation 5, they just introduced a completely new evolution item. Well, I guess GameFreak got their way out of one of these.

-Seasons. With Shikijika/Deerling, I really don't see how they're going to pull off NOT having these in future games. But then again, they apparently got rid of Day and Night in the 3rd generation, despite two of Eievui's evolutions depending on it. Still, they kinda resolved that issue with having RSE's in-game clock at least detect AM and PM (but not actually show off a nighttime environment). Seasons seem like they could be a bit more complicated, however.

-HMs. Yeah, you know how this goes. In-battle, the majority of these work as very shitty attacks, but apparently serve a purpose outside of battle. However, they only serve an out-of-battle purpose in certain games. In the 4th gen's case, it didn't even apply to every game made that generation (DPPt and HGSS have either De-Fog or Whirlpool, respectively). Some of these, like De-Fog, really seem like something we could've done without, and now, it looks like they're just a part of the attack list (which seems about as permanent as the Pokemon).

Some of these things don't seem like they'd take much to incorporate into a game. With something like seasons though, I'll have to see how things go later down the line. And while most of the gimmicks haven't been completely done away with, you do get the feeling that GameFreak could've put a lot more thought into them before making them permanently involved with the games' cast of playable characters (namely the Honey). And with GameFreak having to keep up not only with their list of Pokemon, but also all these little things that are intertwined with their Pokemon as they program each new game, it makes me wonder if they're going to slip up at some point (if they haven't already).
 
They are.

I think the next big change will involve attacks. Modern RPGs show characters performing attacks (Even handheld RPGs have this much detail now) not simple attack animations and if things keep going the way they are Pokemon won't be able to do this when the time comes that it should happen.

The best way I see to do this is to divide attacks into how they are performed (slash, punch, whip, focus, open mouth and aim at enemy) and then go through each pokemon and give them individual animations for each of these actions.
After this they would use various effects to show the difference in type.

There would also be a great deal of refinement in the status move selection reducing them to one to raise and lower each each stat, one to raise the effectiveness of the moves that change stats, one for each weather effect (Including moonlight and fog), one to inflict each status affliction, and one to cure each status affliction. roughly 30.

They would still give pokemon their signiture moves (including elemental hyper beams for starters).

There is also a great deal of potential in changing the way attacks are used and developed.
-Repeated use of an attack could increase power and accuracy
-the STAB mechanic could be expanded to encompass all types. So each pokemon would have a set of hidden values that would determine their proficiency at each type.
 
They are.

I think the next big change will involve attacks. Modern RPGs show characters performing attacks (Even handheld RPGs have this much detail now) not simple attack animations and if things keep going the way they are Pokemon won't be able to do this when the time comes that it should happen.

The best way I see to do this is to divide attacks into how they are performed (slash, punch, whip, focus, open mouth and aim at enemy) and then go through each pokemon and give them individual animations for each of these actions.
After this they would use various effects to show the difference in type.

Already done in the console games, more or less.

There would also be a great deal of refinement in the status move selection reducing them to one to raise and lower each each stat, one to raise the effectiveness of the moves that change stats, one for each weather effect (Including moonlight and fog), one to inflict each status affliction, and one to cure each status affliction. roughly 30.

They would still give pokemon their signiture moves (including elemental hyper beams for starters).

What?

There is also a great deal of potential in changing the way attacks are used and developed.
-Repeated use of an attack could increase power and accuracy

This seems like it would be broken with the Choice items, which force you to use the same move over and over again.

-the STAB mechanic could be expanded to encompass all types. So each pokemon would have a set of hidden values that would determine their proficiency at each type.

This would just be too broken in general, in addition to adding to the people who are already bitching about hidden mechanics (like how Hidden Power is calculated, etc). This really doesn't add any innovation. What's wrong with STAB as is? It called the same-type attack bonus, self-explanatory, and it should be nothing more.
 
Already done in the console games, more or less.

First, thanks for taking the time to read through that.

More or less. I've seen the console games and the attack animations have never impressed me.


Put shortly: cut the status moves down to the bare minimum.


This seems like it would be broken with the Choice items, which force you to use the same move over and over again.
I think you may be over estimating the effect this would have. I'm not talking about turning tackle into giga impact over the course of a battle.


1st concept of how this could work:
After using an attack it's base power would be increased by 1 (maybe 2) for each as pp lowers. It would be reset after pp is recovered. Meaning you would not have drastic changes over the course of the battle in tackle' case it would only get up to 70 by the time it reaches 0 pp. Headbutt would get up to 100 base power in 15 turns at 2 points per attack.

This would affect the planning for different lengths of battles. long battles would sway in favor of pokemon with high defense and low attack giving the player with a focus on swift attacks a stronger sense of urgency.

2nd concept (my preferred one)
After each battle the base power of the attacks would raise based on how many times they have been used. This would occur slowly enough that tackle known at birth would only get to 100 Base power by level 50-65 and stop growing after reaching that point.

This would eliminate the need for several different attacks that have the exact same effect.

This would just be too broken in general, in addition to adding to the people who are already bitching about hidden mechanics (like how Hidden Power is calculated, etc). This really doesn't add any innovation. What's wrong with STAB as is? It called the same-type attack bonus, self-explanatory, and it should be nothing more.

I kind of agree, however I do think it can be expanded on (hopefully in a less convoluted way though) .If these are the same people that complain about every little change to the battle system I don't remotely care about their opinion though.

People don't seem to realize that without some basic changes to the battle system each generation the game would feel exactly the same. This is what made Generation 4 so great (for me). the Special-physical split was a simple change, but it completely changed the way the game was played and allowed me to experiment with old pokemon as if they were new.
 
You'd think that considering they were willing to change the Feebas mechanic, they'd just do away with the Incense mechanic and just let the Pokémon breed.
 
You'd think that considering they were willing to change the Feebas mechanic, they'd just do away with the Incense mechanic and just let the Pokémon breed.

except giving feebas an alternate evolution method using a new item doesn't retcon any older games. That item wasn't available before so it couldn't evolve using that method.

I don't see why they don't simply create a baby incense item to encompass all of them or perhaps introduce something new to the Daycare center to explain how babies are born without incenses there.

Like say:
"Welcome to our daycare center. We leave various incenses out to help pokemon relax." and now they have every incense ever needed to introduce a new baby pokemon.
 
They've retconned games in the past (most glaring examples are remakes), yet a simple change in mechanics just for the ease of things is somehow out of the question?

The reason they don't create an all-encompassing incense is that they'd have to make a new one anyway every time they create a new Pokémon if they're that keen in keeping that continuity.

Then there's also the fact that Gen IV basically broke canon already with Ancient Power evolution Pokémon.
 
The way I see it, much of these "problems" are rooted in game design, which can be changed in the blink of an eye the moment someone thinks of the right idea. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon was a game with no Night or Day, no incense, no environment evolution, and no trees to put honey on (despite the ability still being there and working), and they simply moved everything over to the nearest concept that made sense. For example, Feebas evolved into Milotic requiring an item. They did this before Black and White came out. The additional work out of the new features they add can easily be reduced to that equivalent of just adding another new pokemon. I don't really see any of this to be the kind of exponentially growing workload you're making this out to be.

And I think you're being too hard on the honey... :(
 
Then there's also the fact that Gen IV basically broke canon already with Ancient Power evolution Pokémon.

Uh, there was a genetic mutation in the Yanma population between Generations III and IV which then allowed them to learn Ancientpower. There, solved. :cool:

But anyway, I also am weirded out about Pokemon's continuity.

GameFreak just seems to be digging its own grave with all the Forme differences and location based evolutions (Magnezone, Glaceon, etc.) they're now OBLIGATED to include in EVERY future game. With EVERY new Generation they've gotta have this big pile of old Pokemon abilities dragging them down.

If it were up to me I'd retcon a bunch of it.

Make the Moss Rock and Ice Rock hold items for Eevee and the Strange Magnet a hold item for Magneton and Nosepass. This should remove the obligation of having to include a suitable evolution location for them

Get rid of all the Incenses and just have a Baby Incense, "An incense designed to encourage Pokemon breeding." And after that, DON'T INTRODUCE ANY MORE BABY POKEMON. Just don't.

That should take care of those little points.

As for Giratina's, Rotom's, Shaymin's, Deoxys' and Arcues' Formes... I think they're pretty much stuck there and will just have to include their items/locations in every Gen.

Hopefully GameFreak will have learnt their lesson from this and NOT introduce a Grey-exclusive item for Kyurem to change Formes with.
 
Uh, there was a genetic mutation in the Yanma population between Generations III and IV which then allowed them to learn Ancientpower. There, solved. :cool:
And the mutation that kept them from an evolution which supposedly always existed?
 
The Gracidea item part could easily be changed to a hold-item or something like that. I think the only reason that they kept it that way was to prevent trading to Diamond/Pearl. Also, stop introducing crap like that half way through a generation!

It seems all of these problems mentioned come from the "innovations" or Gen IV. We'll just have to see how things are handled in Gray.
 
...or perhaps introduce something new to the Daycare center to explain how babies are born without incenses there.

Like say:
"Welcome to our daycare center. We leave various incenses out to help pokemon relax." and now they have every incense ever needed to introduce a new baby pokemon.

kinda like have a visible incense burner? like the totally useless one in that small shop in Mahogany Town has, only this time it could be used as said above? i think that would totally work and i'd accept that rather than needing to buy/find 10 different incenses.

...Make the Moss Rock and Ice Rock hold items for Eevee and the Strange Magnet a hold item for Magneton and Nosepass. This should remove the obligation of having to include a suitable evolution location for them...

i agree, like the Sun/Moon shards in XD. except, it could be so that excavation teams were sent to Sinnoh and collected small rocks from said areas and when they brought them back, the affects of the area still work.
 
There would also be a great deal of refinement in the status move selection reducing them to one to raise and lower each each stat, one to raise the effectiveness of the moves that change stats, one for each weather effect (Including moonlight and fog), one to inflict each status affliction, and one to cure each status affliction. roughly 30.

Put shortly: cut the status moves down to the bare minimum.

No.

The variety of status moves adds depth to the gameplay. They keep battles from becoming too much of a stale turn-based elemental rock-paper-scissors. Pokemon isn't always about vanilla attack and destroy. If the status movepool was to be 'refined' like you described, I'd personally be extremely disappointed.

I'm already sad enough that they nerfed Encore in BW among other things but w/e. I supposed it's pretty annoying even versus real people, much less when you're fighting dumb AIs. At least they introduced even more status moves and new gimmicks.

There is also a great deal of potential in changing the way attacks are used and developed.
-Repeated use of an attack could increase power and accuracy
-the STAB mechanic could be expanded to encompass all types. So each pokemon would have a set of hidden values that would determine their proficiency at each type.

I think you may be over estimating the effect this would have. I'm not talking about turning tackle into giga impact over the course of a battle.

...

1st concept of how this could work:
After using an attack it's base power would be increased by 1 (maybe 2) for each as pp lowers. It would be reset after pp is recovered. Meaning you would not have drastic changes over the course of the battle in tackle' case it would only get up to 70 by the time it reaches 0 pp. Headbutt would get up to 100 base power in 15 turns at 2 points per attack.

This would affect the planning for different lengths of battles. long battles would sway in favor of pokemon with high defense and low attack giving the player with a focus on swift attacks a stronger sense of urgency.

2nd concept (my preferred one)
After each battle the base power of the attacks would raise based on how many times they have been used. This would occur slowly enough that tackle known at birth would only get to 100 Base power by level 50-65 and stop growing after reaching that point.

This would eliminate the need for several different attacks that have the exact same effect.

...

I kind of agree, however I do think it can be expanded on (hopefully in a less convoluted way though) .If these are the same people that complain about every little change to the battle system I don't remotely care about their opinion though.

People don't seem to realize that without some basic changes to the battle system each generation the game would feel exactly the same. This is what made Generation 4 so great (for me). the Special-physical split was a simple change, but it completely changed the way the game was played and allowed me to experiment with old pokemon as if they were new.

Point one. First concept. I can see where this might have been interesting. But this idea has already been done sans accuracy in the form of Choice Items. Or Metronome. I think the need to give up your item slot rather justifies their utility (especially Choice items).

Point one. Second concept. As you mentioned how it worked, I don't think that would have a positive impact on battling. Because the weak/powerful attacks are already there, only that you are now proposing we merge the strong and weak moves together. But what about moves that have to be weak, to compensate for their side-effects (priority moves for instance)? What about Technician?

For some moves, like Tackle, this could work because there are undeniably better moves such as Return. But the fixed power in many, many other moves are there for a reason. Not to mention the power brokenness of many Pokemon that has suddenly become trendy since Gen 4. This can't be applied to everything.

Point two has already been discussed.

All I'm saying is that there are rather a lot more variables than you or I might have thought about Pokemon battles. Simply pushing for so many changes at once makes the game unrecognisable. Personally, I enjoy what GF has been doing, slowly refining the game by adding one or two overarching changes per generation. Even one change like that gives us something fresh to try out and keep experimenting with for a long time when combined with the less radical changes of new monsters/items/moves/abilities.

-

As for Yamato-san's other point(s), I agree. Keeping pointless baggage from previous generations like location-specific evolutions and forme changes is pretty annoying.

But if you think about it, there really isn't a need to actually maintain a canon since (like Sven said) GF is already perfectly fine not maintaining one. Therefore, GF can never run themselves into a corner. And if they don't want to do that, just conjure up something vaguely plausible. They're making a fantasy canon, not thinking up fanon. For a kiddy game to boot. They say or do whatever they like.
 
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The Gracidea item part could easily be changed to a hold-item or something like that. I think the only reason that they kept it that way was to prevent trading to Diamond/Pearl. Also, stop introducing crap like that half way through a generation!

for that matter, at the risk of introducing another item, does anyone think they should introduce SOME method of permanently maintaining Shaymin's Sky Forme (even if it has to take up its held item or something)? I mean, how they went about it is unique and all, but I just don't think a particular Pokemon's usage should be restricted by time of day (as well as being frozen, though that's very unlikely to happen, 'specially if it usually dies to any Ice-type attack anyway). I mean, at least with Powarun/Castform and Cherrim, it's affected by an in-battle condition that could happen at any time, if not incurred by the form-changing Pokemon itself (plus, said form changes don't have a complete change of stats, typing, and movepool that essentially make them another Pokemon altogether). From the sounds of it, this especially makes handling one during competitive battles a bitch (even if the 5th gen should logically have all forms available for vs. battling at the moment).
 
Yes, but no because Skymin and Gracidea was a central part of a Pokemon movie. Therefore, it is special and unique and we must keep it that way by making it annoying and hard to get it to transform, just like in the movie (even though the freezing part wasn't included in the movie, we'll throw it in anyway to make it even more special).

Glaceon, Leafeon, Magnezone and Probopass are like that because they, like, absorbed the very essence of their amazing natural environment, like some sort of super-absorbent blutack. Except for man-made ones. Because that would suck. Eevees only like granola. Burmy sucked anyway, so that's okay for them.

But they are all special and unique so we must make them seem like some sort of super-absorbent bluetack.

Well, actually, we admit that we should make life easier for you people, especially those who actually invested time and effort to obtain our special and unique Shaymin. But we won't. Maybe for the others. But certainly not for Shaymin. Even though it takes more time and effort to get. Even though Skymin is extremely useful. Because that wouldn't make it super special and unique. That's not the same as useful.
 
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It would be very easy to change Magneton and Nosepass's evolution methods to "Trade while holding Magnet"

That solves the location problem, and it still makes sense in-universe.

Eevee could work the same way, with a trade holding Miracle Seed evolving it to Leafeon and a trade holding Nevermeltice evolving it to Glaceon.

"Trade holding item" is a simple way to solve all the location-evolution problems!
 
I do think that GameFreak has often worked themselves into a corner, but they seem to have recovered from the bigger mistakes they made in Gen IV -- Honey, area-based evolutions, among others.
 
I believe if GameFreak just took ideas from Pokemon fans, they could make the games even better. I, for one, was ticked about not being able to evolve Magneton and Nosepass to Magnezone and Probopass, and Eevee to Glaceon and Leafeon in HGSS.
 
I believe if GameFreak just took ideas from Pokemon fans, they could make the games even better. I, for one, was ticked about not being able to evolve Magneton and Nosepass to Magnezone and Probopass, and Eevee to Glaceon and Leafeon in HGSS.

There were, in fact, quite a few trainer cards featuring 5 fully evolved pokemon + Magneton back when the games first came out if I remember correctly. Because we all assumed there would be some way to evolve it
 
Rather, the main point is that GF keeps introducing things like these for no other purpose than to cater to making certain Pokemon more 'unique'.

It really doesn't matter if Magneton evolved from kooky magnetic fields or attaching a magnet to it or by making it especially angry or whatever's fashionable to evolve through these days.

The problem is the unique evolution method has to be carried over to subsequent games. They start to really add up after a while. Just look at all the goddamn held items I have to carry - 90% of evolution-inducing held items have only that purpose and are otherwise effectively useless.

And to make things even more tiresome, GF decided that items, battle items and Pokeballs should all be in the same pocket. Terrible, really. I liked DPPt's system better, but for all we know, we'll have an 'Evolution-inducing held-items' pocket soon enough if this keeps up.
 
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