Official Pre-Pokémon Sword & Pokémon Shield Speculation & Leaks thread

[TechSkylander1518]

I know that, but they are technically NOT starters, else you can class every Pokemon as a starter since you can play Randomizers or you box the Pokemon you choose and start your journey with the one you catch, but does that make them starters, nope, despite you are using them as your starter.

You start your journey with the first forms and thus you start with them. Not with the fully evolved forms.

But that's not the point of the theory. The theory has never been "the first forms of the Fire-type starters fit the Chinese Zodiac", it's always been about the entire evolutionary line. People call them starters because they count the entire line as starters. (Which, as I said before, is not unique to this theory) Arguing about the technicality of them being "starters" just because you don't like that Incineroar and Charizard really do fit the zodiac theory is just debating terminology, it's not actually a counterargument. If you really want to try to get the whole fandom to stop calling evolved Pokemon starters, go ahead and try to push that, but considering you only bring up this argument when the zodiac theory gets brought up, it seems to me that you're just splitting hairs.

 

[InfernapeTheWise]

Zodiac arguments for the 8383737374774737372821910100200373737388292736555144141424203937736637362627277298746378662462748743648736487364478632048778670746265487492376463408748273737365111227390003927276262525266218010284774839298273738383838383847472815414314142461626251441414299991716116626266220928261514241444242471209292029924949494848480292882366454694827499372828389343749395464583929292874th time

Okay,this is epic

 

[BigBadButterfree]

I want this whole debate to rest. You can just call me the "zodiac killer."

...wait.

 

[TrainerJaren]

Pokemon Animorphs spin off confirmed.

 

[Velvet]

Honestly, I wouldn't mind the whole Two Professor thing? It sounds interesting long as its pulled off well.

 

[BigBadButterfree]

Honestly, I wouldn't mind the whole Two Professor thing? It sounds interesting long as its pulled off well.

I think it could be interesting as well, but... Only if it actually makes a difference. Like, other cases of this kind of thing have been very poorly executed. Like Drayden/Iris or the ultra recon squad. What was the point? Which character you had in your version did not affect anything other than dialogue. Something like gen 3's evil team is a much better approach for something like this.

 

[nickdt]

I think it could be interesting as well, but... Only if it actually makes a difference. Like, other cases of this kind of thing have been very poorly executed. Like Drayden/Iris or the ultra recon squad. What was the point? Which character you had in your version did not affect anything other than dialogue. Something like gen 3's evil team is a much better approach for something like this.

Well... you can have them being a married couple in both games. In one of them, the Male is the professor, while the female is secretly the champion and then it is reversed in the other game.

 

[Velvet]

Maybe with a few different things happening like? The main professors are switched around depending on the version; alternating with giving the trainers their Pokemon while the other hands out the Dex and Map (later), the other Professor is travelling via the road and providing help during battle while the main calls on whatever the Poke-Communication Device is; or even having a previous connection with the Evil Team of that Season? Could be completely different depending on the version.

 

[BigBadButterfree]

Well... you can have them being a married couple in both games. In one of them, the Male is the professor, while the female is secretly the champion and then it is reversed in the other game.

Ok, but unless their teams are different, it would be meaningless. Like, Drayden and Iris had the same team, so their version exclusivity was overall pointless.

 

[PocketMonster]

View attachment 112343

Sounds completely random.
From 4chan.

Huge grain of salt.
Probably all made up.

if true, i kinda wonder if the eevee is ghost from the description.

however, I dont believe it. I think we will get a flying eevee... unless maybe there will be two eevee evolutions released.

 

[SinnohEevee]

Isn't a stat boost with possibility of a new type what Mega Evolution basically is?

 

[Esserise]

I think it could be interesting as well, but... Only if it actually makes a difference. Like, other cases of this kind of thing have been very poorly executed. Like Drayden/Iris or the ultra recon squad. What was the point? Which character you had in your version did not affect anything other than dialogue. Something like gen 3's evil team is a much better approach for something like this.

While I do wonder what exactly they were trying to achieve with the version-exclusive pairings of the Ultra Recon Squad (if anything, they only made the story slightly more disjointed because certain details are actually left out depending on which version you’re playing - for instance, both games feature a scene on Route 2 where the URS ponder how they can gain access to Verdant Cavern without being island challengers, but only Ultra Moon answers the problem by referencing their affiliation with Lusamine, while in Ultra Sun the problem is raised, but then they just show up in Verdant Cavern anyway), with the “difference” in their goal of either capturing or defeating Necrozma in battle being so little-emphasized as to not even be worth the distinction, I will say that Drayden and Iris are simply intended as another stylistic difference for the duality theme of BW, like the greenhouses/open fields in Mistralton. They’re not really supposed to have radically different teams or anything (Unova doesn’t have enough Dragon-types to make that work, although it should be noted that their Druddigon’s abilities are still evocative of their respective personalities - Rough Skin for Drayden’s stalwart austerity and Sheer Force for Iris’s excessive, all-at-once energy), they’re just meant to convey the imagery of a high-tech, modernized city being overseen by a grizzled old patriarch in comparison to a traditionalist, nature- and history-revering city being kept up by a bubbly, hyperactive heir of the future. It’s another example of how contradictory natures can be complementary rather than oppositional, and that is distilled most clearly in the adoptive familial relationship between Drayden and Iris.

If you only evaulate things according to their effect on the gameplay, then I can see how the difference between Drayden and Iris would seem arbitrary, but there is more to the game than just that. I would agree that gameplay is probably the most important factor, but BW were also fairly heavily focused on story and themes, and I think a detail like Drayden and Iris doesn’t necessarily have to make a big splash in terms of gameplay in order to be be relevant or interesting, especially when not including it would have resulted in something significantly less illustrative.

 

[RileyXY1]

Well, I'm back, and I'm here to give my thoughts on this whole "Zodiac" argument.

I don't believe in it.

Cyndaquil, while argued to be the "Rat" has a ton of different design inspirations. It is mostly based on quilled mammals such as porcupines and echidnas, mixed with honey badgers, with its evolutions increasing its honey badger influence. Fennekin is based on a fennec fox. The "Dog" of the Chinese Zodiac refers to the kind of dogs you keep as pets. Fennec foxes usually are only kept as exotic pets and not a lot of people own one.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

Cyndaquil, while argued to be the "Rat" has a ton of different design inspirations.

Nobody arguing in favor of the Zodiac theory says that it's the only inspiration to the Pokemon's design, just that it's one factor out of many.

It is mostly based on quilled mammals such as porcupines and echidnas,

Porcupines are rodents.

 

[nickdt]

Porcupines are rodents.

But Echidna's are not.

 

[VelVoxelRaptor]

Two things I want Gen 8 to do- release a dolphin and a non-Chinese zodiac fire-type so we can finally put some of these leak clichés to bed.

It will be a Rhino. But since Rhinos are (somehow) related to Horses...

 

[Oriden]

It will be a Rhino. But since Rhinos are (somehow) related to Horses...

It will never eeeeend.

Dream scenario, though- Fire-starter will be Honoguma. What then, Zodiac theorists? ;D

 

[VelVoxelRaptor]

Dream scenario, though- Fire-starter will be Honoguma. What then, Zodiac theorists? ;D

It’s middle Evolution will be a sheep.

 

[BigBadButterfree]

It will never eeeeend.

Dream scenario, though- Fire-starter will be Honoguma. What then, Zodiac theorists? ;D

Lol you know what they COULD do? Give us an ACTUAL rat/mouse. That could also solve things, I think.

Other animals I would like to see as a fire starter that could potentially break the theory are frog, bear, some kind of insect, goat (although that'd probably be called sheep), flamingo (lol, flame-ingo), and armadillo. Some of those probably would work better than others.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

flamingo

I feel flamingo would work better as a water starter...