(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[Samtendo09]

They really really really fucked up the Galarian Ponyta line which makes me so sad.

I remember everyone I knew thought Galarian Ponyta was really cute, and a good design, and I did too. The type was fine, if a bit oversaturated, as well.

Then the game came out. Its evolution is ugly as hell. The stats are horrid. Its type would be straight up better without the Psychic type.

Honestly, this line could have become an easy fan favorite, or at least a line that a niche subsect of the community fucking loved, if they just nailed the evolution, or let it do something in competitive play. Most of the regional forms at least have some sense of "We are going to make this Pokemon more modern, and give it a new chance in competitive!" Does it always work? No, but even amongst the ones that did not have some major success, they can still be cool in some ways. This was also the gen where they were straight up doing new evos, so honestly if they really couldn't find a way to make Rapidash cute, just make it a new evo entirely.

One thing I remember distinctly about the Galar hype cycle was that pre release I fucking loved all the Pokemon they were revealing, but post release I found that I disliked a good amount of the dex. It was really disappointing for me.

I’m not the only one feeling this way. I think the issue is that too many of the designs were trying to be plushie-like in appearance, thus hurting the variety of their designs and is what happens if you focus too much on merchandising in mind for the Pokémon design. While it worked for the design of Falinks and (to a point) Galarian Stunfisk, it backfired for too many for me to count.

Say, which of the Galar mons stook out in the worst way possible in disappointment, ant?

 

[Bakugames]

tbh i was one of the lame people who just wanted a kelpie, though i was more on the "ugly" than the "cool" side when people design one of those. I think they should have given g-rapidash wings though. celestia knock off

 

[Ironmage]

tbh i was one of the lame people who just wanted a kelpie, though i was more on the "ugly" than the "cool" side when people design one of those. I think they should have given g-rapidash wings though. celestia knock off

I ended up disappointed in the absence of kelpie-like mons from a different direction: Weezing-galar felt lame as the first Posion/Fairy given the amount of horrors that can be found in folklore, my specific point of comparison being the Nuckelavee.

 

[Bakugames]

I ended up disappointed in the absence of kelpie-like mons from a different direction: Weezing-galar felt lame as the first Posion/Fairy given the amount of horrors that can be found in folklore, my specific point of comparison being the Nuckelavee.

TBH i think weezing galar is the best poison/fairy type because its really funny + a lot more creative. give this guy a big fucking tophat and make him the industry and the bossman but also hes a good guy he filters air :). delightful

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

tbh i was one of the lame people who just wanted a kelpie, though i was more on the "ugly" than the "cool" side when people design one of those. I think they should have given g-rapidash wings though. celestia knock off

Deadass, G-Dash should've straight up been a Pegasus. As a Fire Emblem player, I can confirm that would've been for the best.

On the other hand, if it ever gets a cross-gen evo...

 

[R_N]

I think Rapidash-G looks nice, rather than ugly, but also yes it absolutely should have had wings.
Like everyone wanted pegasus Rapidash to begin with and now we've got My little Pony rapidash and its like it wants wings even more, without needing an evolution




Hey remember when the reveal of the thing had a Ponyta with a rendering error, missing its tail and people thought it might be a distinct difference. Or when they thought it looked younger than regular Ponyta and maybe it was actually a pre-evolution? Ahhhh, that sure was a long day.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Deadass, G-Dash should've straight up been a Pegasus. As a Fire Emblem player, I can confirm that would've been for the best.

The horse is a zodiac animal, so I'm holding out hope for a pegasus fire starter eventually (ducks for cover at the prospect of re-igniting that particular debate)

But more seriously a pegasus Pokemon in general is a weird, weird omission after nine generations considering there's a fair few Pokemon who seem to take influence from Greek mythology. Maybe they've just never been able to come up with a satisfying design.

 

[DrrT]

It really is weird there isn't any kind of pegasus yet, trough I wouldn't be surprised if they just don't want it to relate to Rapidash due to it being the expected thing- and to be honest unicorns and pegasus are different creatures, so it wouldn't really relate to Galar at all. But it's also the kind of design that can get busy very easily if you give it detailed wings, so maybe as mentioned they did try and failed.

On an unrelated note I wanted to rant about more localization stuff, particularly Geeta's "La Primera" title. I'm sure it's far from being the only example of it in the series but its like, a very awkward title in Spanish, probably why we got a completely different one (La Super). It would translate to The First, but...the first what? I get they are badly trying to say something similar to "top" but, should she even be considered the top champion since any other Paldea champion has to beat her to even be regarded as such? It just seems so clumsy to me, trough admitedly I find that kind of mistranslation both annoying and amusing. I'm probably giving it more thought that they ever did.

 

[R_N]

It really is weird there isn't any kind of pegasus yet, trough I wouldn't be surprised if they just don't want it to relate to Rapidash due to it being the expected thing- and to be honest unicorns and pegasus are different creatures, so it wouldn't really relate to Galar at all. But it's also the kind of design that can get busy very easily if you give it detailed wings, so maybe as mentioned they did try and failed.

On an unrelated note I wanted to rant about more localization stuff, particularly Geeta's "La Primera" title. I'm sure it's far from being the only example of it in the series but its like, a very awkward title in Spanish, probably why we got a completely different one (La Super). It would translate to The First, but...the first what? I get they are badly trying to say something similar to "top" but, should she even be considered the top champion since any other Paldea champion has to beat her to even be regarded as such? It just seems so clumsy to me, trough admitedly I find that kind of mistranslation both annoying and amusing. I'm probably giving it more thought that they ever did.

She's considered the Top/First I assume because of her ELO

I don't mean that as a joke I mean that since she rose to the rank of champion far fewer people have gotten the rank themselves and it sounds like she routinely enforces that when checking in on the other leaders and E4s and I guess the rest of the Pokemon league.

It's probably a little clumsy as a title but honestly so is La Super if you were to read it in English. It probably went akin to "her japanese title is Top, but we want to add a little Spanish Flare (TM). The First [in the rankings] gets the point across as well as Top [champion/chairwoman] and also Primera has good mouth feel to English speakers and is similar to Premiere Ball so people will get the gist even without knowing what it means."

e: Also someone whose job is to be Too Online is probably slowly going "we cannot call her anything that immediately reads as The Top, just trust me"

 

[Sixfortyfive]

On an unrelated note I wanted to rant about more localization stuff

Going back to 3rd gen and seeing all of the "fufufufu" laughs genuinely drives me nuts.

 

[pika pal]

On Geeta's title, was she the First Champion for the established League as well, to make that applicable as much as the "Top" Champion? It could also just be referring to her status as the big wig: any other Champion ranked trainer has to go through her as a test, whether we believe the headcanon that she's supposed to pull punches compared to all-out battling at AA Tournament or Blueberry Visits. Every Champion comes after her so she's the first, title still seems to work.

 

[AztecCroc]

It really is weird there isn't any kind of pegasus yet, trough I wouldn't be surprised if they just don't want it to relate to Rapidash due to it being the expected thing- and to be honest unicorns and pegasus are different creatures, so it wouldn't really relate to Galar at all. But it's also the kind of design that can get busy very easily if you give it detailed wings, so maybe as mentioned they did try and failed.

On an unrelated note I wanted to rant about more localization stuff, particularly Geeta's "La Primera" title. I'm sure it's far from being the only example of it in the series but its like, a very awkward title in Spanish, probably why we got a completely different one (La Super). It would translate to The First, but...the first what? I get they are badly trying to say something similar to "top" but, should she even be considered the top champion since any other Paldea champion has to beat her to even be regarded as such? It just seems so clumsy to me, trough admitedly I find that kind of mistranslation both annoying and amusing. I'm probably giving it more thought that they ever did.

Primera is not a word in English, Super is. Calling someone "La Super" either reads as dumb or as bad fake French rather than Spanish (regardless of how correct it may be), La Primera is close enough to premier (like Premier Ball) for non-Spanish speaking people to get the gist regardless of how it may sound in actual Spanish.

In general, if you're using a word from another language as a title, you want it to be one that doesn't exist in English. Especially if you're putting la or le in front of it, because otherwise it'll just be read as the English word (possibly with a bad French accent).

You call her the "The Super" or "La Super" in English and it'll just sound dumb. Super is not a noun in English (outside some more indie superhero fandoms), it's an adjective, and calling her that sounds just as dumb in English as La Primera does in Spanish.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Yeah La Primera is fine. 'First', along with related words like 'premier' and 'prime', has long held implications of supremacy as well as ordinality. We talk about 'first place' in competitions even when they aren't time-based and 'first class' even when the other classes aren't sequenced behind it, physically or chronologically.

Even setting that aside and ignoring that it just sounds good to the average English speaker's ear... writers are allowed to use words idiomatically? I actually find it more immersive when they do, rather than having the cleanest, most direct translations.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

On an unrelated note I wanted to rant about more localization stuff, particularly Geeta's "La Primera" title. I'm sure it's far from being the only example of it in the series but its like, a very awkward title in Spanish, probably why we got a completely different one (La Super). It would translate to The First, but...the first what?

Champion. It's implied VeGeeta is the first champion of Paldea. At least on THAT level.

It's not as crazy taking Alola in mind, y'know?

 

[DrrT]

Primera is not a word in English, Super is. Calling someone "La Super" either reads as dumb or as bad fake French rather than Spanish (regardless of how correct it may be), La Primera is close enough to premier (like Premier Ball) for non-Spanish speaking people to get the gist regardless of how it may sound in actual Spanish.

In general, if you're using a word from another language as a title, you want it to be one that doesn't exist in English. Especially if you're putting la or le in front of it, because otherwise it'll just be read as the English word (possibly with a bad French accent).

You call her the "The Super" or "La Super" in English and it'll just sound dumb. Super is not a noun in English (outside some more indie superhero fandoms), it's an adjective, and calling her that sounds just as dumb in English as La Primera does in Spanish.

I never said it should be called La Super in English, what are you talking about? And as I mentioned Super actually stands for supercampeona/ superintedent it's also a word in Spanish and would be a noun in English... And the equivalent would not be calling her "La Super" anyways, it would be just plain "Super" coloquially as Nemona uses it. Trough that probably wouldn't work as Top Champion sounds a lot better on English than superchampion.

Yeah La Primera is fine. 'First', along with related words like 'premier' and 'prime', has long held implications of supremacy as well as ordinality. We talk about 'first place' in competitions even when they aren't time-based and 'first class' even when the other classes aren't sequenced behind it, physically or chronologically.

Even setting that aside and ignoring that it just sounds good to the average English speaker's ear... writers are allowed to use words idiomatically? I actually find it more immersive when they do, rather than having the cleanest, most direct translations.

See my issue with this is that I really can't see why she is the First in anything given she isn't above the Champions. Others have suggested good options tho, but I'm not advocating for a direct translation anyways but just one that makes sense (not in Spanish obviously, but at least as a simple noun). I guess it ends up being unnecesary abstract for me considering there is a clear tier of power with her being above the E4 but below anyone who gained the Champion title.

Champion. It's implied VeGeeta is the first champion of Paldea. At least on THAT level.

It's not as crazy taking Alola in mind, y'know?

See this is something I can get behind. There is a lot of stuff unexplained about her and her connection to Area Zero anyways...

 

[R_N]

To be clear Geeta is canonically above the other champions. She's the current top-ranking Champion of Paldea and the chairwoman of the league likewise.

"Everyone calls Ms. Geeta "La Primera" because she's just that—she's the real number one, even higher than us regular Champions... She's the Top Champion!"

Among the region’s Champions, she reigns supreme as the most skilled Trainer of all.

My ELO thing really wasn't a joke. If we could see the leader board she'd be #1 and would retain that position even after losing to us. If it helps visualize it better swap "Champion" with "Master Ball Rank"

 

[VividBunnie]

After finishing the Victory Road portion of the plot, I generally went with the interpretation that Top Champion role itself was also to emphasize more on the bureaucratic work Geeta does. A lot of the time whenever Geeta appears or is mentioned, focus just as often put on the busywork she does to make sure things like the League are running smoothly as it is her being strong.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

The Top Champion is just the Champion.

The other "champions" are only named as such in order to give the player the impression that beating Nemona is actually supposed to mean something, even though (because?) she's an incredibly poor rival character.

 

[MoonlightRose]

Sonic Boom. A sonic boom is such a good concept for a move with a couple of ways that it could be used, and what was it? Dragon Rage from wish.com that wasn't even fully accurate.

 

[a blue banana]

From a technical standpoint, I find the Snacksworth legendaries poorly implemented. I'm not going into the shiny lock or the "no guaranteed 31 IV" much because I feel it's already been discussed among the community already, but there are a couple other things I find especially weird:

• All the returning legendaries are at Lv. 70. By the time the player has unlocked the Snacksworth sidequest, they would have went through essentially five boss battles in the high 70s-low 80s and a level 85 final boss, not accounting the normal trainers and even some wild Pokemon in the low-mid 70s. Fighting the returning legends at a level more appropriate for base post-game feels very weird.
• All but one of the legendaries have their movesets based on their level-up set. This isn't an issue for some of the legendaries, but because the level-up movesets for all the legends were revamped back in Gen 8, some Pokemon have eccentric and/or annoying quirks like:
  • Having redundant or useless moves: Reshiram and Zekrom with 3 STAB moves of their secondary typing but no Dragon STAB, Glastrier and Spectrier not knowing Icicle Crash or Shadow Ball but instead two annoying Normal-type attacks, Latias's Healing Wish
  • Missing their signature move: Solgaleo, Lunala, Latias, Groudon and Kyogre. The latter two are an interesting case because they learn their signature moves at Level 63 in gen 8, but at Level 1 in gen 9 (and no replacement move at Level 63 fsr).
  • Having moves that can KO the legendary: Solgaleo, Glastrier, and Spectrier have at least one move that can KO themselves. Aside from the Legendary Beasts in the Colosseum spin-off, none of the legendary battles in the series have ways that could accidentally self-KO the Pokemon the player is trying the catch.
  • The above point is made weirder by the fact that Latios's moveset is the only one that is not based on the standard level-up set. If it was, it'd have known Memento, and apparently the devs thought that was bad enough to change its moveset entirely. But that also implies that having some of the legendaries know recoil moves is fine for them.

This isn't a problem that's exclusive to this gen since other generations like 6 and 7 had the same problems. I just find gen 9 to be the worst case of it so far mainly because of the baffling idea of letting the horses knock themselves out.

 

[Ironmage]

• Having moves that can KO the legendary: Solgaleo, Glastrier, and Spectrier have at least one move that can KO themselves. Aside from the Legendary Beasts in the Colosseum spin-off, none of the legendary battles in the series have ways that could accidentally self-KO the Pokemon the player is trying the catch.

This isn't quite correct, Kyogre in Emerald knows Double-edge (it also has Rest, which can be a pain for other reasons). I've also seen Struggle a few times, so I usually try to play around the possibility that any legendary has the ability to KO itself eventually (usually by ensuring paralysis so it burns PP at a slower rate).

 

[a blue banana]

This isn't quite correct, Kyogre in Emerald knows Double-edge (it also has Rest, which can be a pain for other reasons). I've also seen Struggle a few times, so I usually try to play around the possibility that any legendary has the ability to KO itself eventually (usually by ensuring paralysis so it burns PP at a slower rate).

I forgot about Kyogre's Double-Edge in Emerald, but in reference to Struggle, I'm well aware that all legendaries carry the risk of KO'ing themselves when the battle goes on for too long. I'm mainly talking about moves like Double-Edge or Thrash that some legendaries have in their innate moveset in some games.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Rayquaza also had Outrage in 3rd gen, which brings with it a self-confusion risk.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I'm planning on replaying FRLG soon so I'm looking at a lot of the game mechanics and I never realised - another creepy Kanto and Sinnoh parallel! - how appalling the selection of Fire-types is for the majority of the game.

Because Magmar and Ponyta were removed from Cinnabar Island, if you don't pick Charmander your only option for a Fire-type until after defeating Blaine is Growlithe/Vulpix depending on version played. Oh no, wait - you can also obtain Flareon at around the same point, but this of course comes with the caveat that choosing Flareon locks you out of Vaporeon and Jolteon unless you trade for another Eevee, so for some players it really is just Vulpix/Growlithe or nothing (bad luck LeafGreen players, Growlithe is miles better)

Lame. I've not played FRLG for ages so I'd assumed Ponyta was available on Cycling Road, but it turns out that was only ever a thing in Yellow.

 

[Sonikku A]

I'm planning on replaying FRLG soon so I'm looking at a lot of the game mechanics and I never realised - another creepy Kanto and Sinnoh parallel! -

What other parallels are there? Honestly curious