WyndonCalling
Can I steal this for our Twitter?
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2020
- Messages
- 1,799
- Reaction score
- 2,597
Selective breeding and deliberate training (including the use of mints, feathers and vitamins) are thoroughly part and parcel of competitive Pokémon - to be blunt, you can't credibly compete without perfect or near-perfect numbers backing up your team. For many, this is simply the reality of the scene, but there are also swathes of fans who are less comfortable with these processes and their implications for the in-game world of Pokémon. Dumping imperfect hatchlings in the PC or altering the fundamental nature of individual Pokémon can leave a sour taste in the mouths of those invested in the world constructed by the games.
The ask, therefore, is two-fold; where do you place yourself on this spectrum of opinion, and how long have you been playing? I have a spurious hunch that younger fans may be less comfortable with competitive breeding given the increasing emphasis within the games on the individual personalities of the Pokémon themselves, with more ways to interact with them outside of battle - Amie, camping and the like. In older games, the titular creatures are vicious little monsters with nothing in the way of non-combat relation to the player outside of a threadbare friendship mechanic in GSC, and so more august fans might be more relaxed about pumping their companions full of steroids.
Myself, I'm firmly in the latter camp; my personal headcanon companions are quite divorced from the in-game, mechanical representations of those characters. I've bred multiple individuals of my favourite species and even those I've retained from decade-old playthroughs are merely bundles of data that trigger fond gaming memories, not true characters in and of themselves. Furthermore, my broader conception of Pokémon leans towards animalistic, rather than sapient. The Kanto roster remains my favourite and it's the least cuddly of the bunch; they're truly pocket monsters as opposed to anime cast members, and early Pokémon media (including the gnarly art of the cards of the time) seem to reinforce this notion.
The answers to this question will be highly subjective and personal; the more you can elaborate on your conceptualisation of the world of the Pokémon games, the more fascinating for the rest of us!
The ask, therefore, is two-fold; where do you place yourself on this spectrum of opinion, and how long have you been playing? I have a spurious hunch that younger fans may be less comfortable with competitive breeding given the increasing emphasis within the games on the individual personalities of the Pokémon themselves, with more ways to interact with them outside of battle - Amie, camping and the like. In older games, the titular creatures are vicious little monsters with nothing in the way of non-combat relation to the player outside of a threadbare friendship mechanic in GSC, and so more august fans might be more relaxed about pumping their companions full of steroids.
Myself, I'm firmly in the latter camp; my personal headcanon companions are quite divorced from the in-game, mechanical representations of those characters. I've bred multiple individuals of my favourite species and even those I've retained from decade-old playthroughs are merely bundles of data that trigger fond gaming memories, not true characters in and of themselves. Furthermore, my broader conception of Pokémon leans towards animalistic, rather than sapient. The Kanto roster remains my favourite and it's the least cuddly of the bunch; they're truly pocket monsters as opposed to anime cast members, and early Pokémon media (including the gnarly art of the cards of the time) seem to reinforce this notion.
The answers to this question will be highly subjective and personal; the more you can elaborate on your conceptualisation of the world of the Pokémon games, the more fascinating for the rest of us!