SoFarSoGood

Porygon enthraller, and enthusiast
Member
Sandy Shocks
what ?? is that it's name?? I'm sorry, I just don't understand.
also, a move that revives another mon? man that sounds amazing. A team bringing back a Zacian sounds hilarious.
 

Diego Lima

Aspiring Trainer
Member
The Sprigatito line completely baffles me, why did they signal such cuteness on the first evo, only to go completely dark on the other ones? Like, wtf.

1668725330420.png 1668725362584.png 1668725388743.png

There's a reason all the great fakes people made when Sprigatito was revealed have more or less the same vibe...because that's the vibe Sprigatito gives...Why the hell are the second and last evos suddenly bipedal (ugh...) edgelords?????
 

ShinxieDim

bbbbbbbbbbbbbb
Member
I love love love the four dark legends!! lil fire guppy and cereal bowl deer are making my day. Big fan of the mouse couple and Bellibolt is still great.

But... I feel like there's some genuinely questionable designs here? Like, Pawmi's evolutions feel like placeholder designs that haven't been given their distinctive features yet. And Dudunsparce is.. funny? I guess? But I don't think that makes it a great design, it really feels like it was made solely so that people would stop asking for a Dunsparce evo. Again, it feels like a placeholder design that you'd see in a leaked Spaceworld beta or something.

Also, between Carkoal and Revavroom, we have 2 car Pokemon now! I find that kind of amusing because there's some Game Freak interview buried somewhere about their design process, and they talk about how they would hypothetically make a car Pokemon in a way that's kind of a joke example. Not whining though, they're good little engines.

Lastly... I'm kind of disappointed that Naclstack doesn't actually have a minecraft pig face. The blurry screenshots from leaks made it look like it did :(
 

Nyora

A Cat
Member
I like the BREAKthrough vibes Paradoxes sort of give off. The Scarlet Paradoxes are a lot more wild and named like that, with names that can embody the wild / primitive eras like Scream Tail and Roaring Moon.
On the other hand, Violet's Paradoxes are very standard and consistent, sharp, smooth, and uniform, all getting the same prefix of Iron and a name to match what it is. Their designs also fit this uniform, futuristic feel, each being with some robotic traits or attributes.
Violet speaks of a world where everything is super standard and as it should be, where Scarlet crowns the chaotic nature of the wild more. It seemed to be a little about Past & Future at first, but seeing the paradoxes and some other story spoilers, I think the themes behind these legendaries is instead BREAKthrough's same concept- Nature vs Technology.
With more spoilers, I think that the game's middle legend- to be seen in DLC- is yet again responsible for the game's mechanic or Terastallization. This was already somewhat hinted at, but to go further I think Terastallizing is a lighter version of Paradox Pokemon- which the middle legend may have also caused / been responsible for. The energy that it emanates is all over Paldea, having crystallized as Tera Crystals in some parts and mysterioualy affecting even the Pokemon themselves in others, resulting in these paradoxes.

Personally my favourite new mon of this generation is Garganacl. I love what they did with Salt Cure and Purifying Salt, finally bringing salt as a Pokemon in a way that hits it well, even as much as including the cultural side of it with Purifying Salt. Competitively, it's pretty mid. Salt Cure helps against Water and Steel Pokemon, but as a Rock Pokemon, it might not survive long against those types and is very prone to being beat down by other attacks. Its natural bulk can help this, though the Rock typing doesn't do it many favours. Purifying Salt granting Ghost resistance is handy, but it doesn't quite have the tools to capitalize on that. The status immunity granted by this however is big, as it is otherwise largely affected by most status conditions, so it gets some advantage there. Probably won't be super good, but it can definitely carve a niche for itself.
 

DMYSYS

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Reminder to ignore the naysayers, this happens literally every generation.
No, it really doesn't. Gen 8 was the first time ever I decided "I really don't recognize these things as Pokémon, I'm not even going to keep the cards I pull of them" and set them aside from the rest of my cards. I haven't recanted on that, either. This looks to be the second time this happens.

Pretending the design philosophy of Pokémon hasn't radically diverged from what it used to be is ridiculous. We know from the designers themselves they deliberately are pursuing new design concepts and ideas, and it is clearly reflecting in what we are seeing. If you want to have a debate about whether the new designs are good or not – that's fine, but pretending any dislike is "oh just more of the same" is disingenuous.
 

hervul

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Can someone who played the game explain to me why Wigglet/Wugtrio and Toadscool/Toadscruel are new Pokemon and not Paldean forms of the original?
 

Nintenfreak

Aspiring Trainer
Member
No, it really doesn't. Gen 8 was the first time ever I decided "I really don't recognize these things as Pokémon, I'm not even going to keep the cards I pull of them" and set them aside from the rest of my cards. I haven't recanted on that, either. This looks to be the second time this happens.

Pretending the design philosophy of Pokémon hasn't radically diverged from what it used to be is ridiculous. We know from the designers themselves they deliberately are pursuing new design concepts and ideas, and it is clearly reflecting in what we are seeing. If you want to have a debate about whether the new designs are good or not – that's fine, but pretending any dislike is "oh just more of the same" is disingenuous.
I did not like most of the Pokemon that were in the base generation 8 game. And I agree with you there however I do like most of the Pokemon that I'm seeing in generation 9. So yeah I think maybe you might be a naysayer
 

Lostlorn Forest

Alola is the best region
Member
No, it really doesn't. Gen 8 was the first time ever I decided "I really don't recognize these things as Pokémon, I'm not even going to keep the cards I pull of them" and set them aside from the rest of my cards. I haven't recanted on that, either. This looks to be the second time this happens.

Pretending the design philosophy of Pokémon hasn't radically diverged from what it used to be is ridiculous. We know from the designers themselves they deliberately are pursuing new design concepts and ideas, and it is clearly reflecting in what we are seeing. If you want to have a debate about whether the new designs are good or not – that's fine, but pretending any dislike is "oh just more of the same" is disingenuous.
It's a humbling lesson I've had to learn but Pokemon is a game for kids. GF is simply adapting to the current tastes of the market as they see it. You can't objectively take a Pokemon and say it's "not a Pokemon" - what's your metric for establishing that? Take it from me, I really couldn't hate Gen 8 and a good chunk of its designs any more than I do, but I still have plenty of the cards in my binder. It was cute cardboard then it's cute cardboard now. It's not serious :)
 

PartTimeTCGCollector

Aspiring Trainer
No, it really doesn't. Gen 8 was the first time ever I decided "I really don't recognize these things as Pokémon, I'm not even going to keep the cards I pull of them" and set them aside from the rest of my cards. I haven't recanted on that, either. This looks to be the second time this happens.

Pretending the design philosophy of Pokémon hasn't radically diverged from what it used to be is ridiculous. We know from the designers themselves they deliberately are pursuing new design concepts and ideas, and it is clearly reflecting in what we are seeing. If you want to have a debate about whether the new designs are good or not – that's fine, but pretending any dislike is "oh just more of the same" is disingenuous.
Well said, period.
 

Diego Lima

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I know talking about stupidity in this day and age is redundant, but this specific brand of stupidity that manifests itself as this stilted, unnatural, inauthentic, and forced "positivity" is particularly idiotic, my god. It's the same thing in music, a band releases a new album, and it's just not that good, people rightfully point that out, and soon these insufferable paladins show up to defend it. It's always "just different", "they have to change, it's only natural", blah blah blah, they never actually entertain the craaazy idea that maybe, just maybe...it's just bad. So, since their ridiculous affectation is completely non-genuine, and their happy-go-lucky attitude actually derives from idiotic narcisism and a need to virtue signal their oh so cute positive view of everything regardless of anything, rather than actual genuine appreciation for what they're deffending, they have to devolve their whole line of arguments to "ignore the haters 🥴", they have to pretend that people pointing the flaws don't exist, because in not having any genuine appreciation for the thing being discussed, they have no way to defend or counter-argument the negative comments.
 

PartTimeTCGCollector

Aspiring Trainer
I know talking about stupidity in this day and age is redundant, but this specific brand of stupidity that manifests itself as this stilted, unnatural, inauthentic, and forced "positivity" is particularly idiotic, my god. It's the same thing in music, a band releases a new album, and it's just not that good, people rightfully point that out, and soon these insufferable paladins show up to defend it. It's always "just different", "they have to change, it's only natural", blah blah blah, they never actually entertain the craaazy idea that maybe, just maybe...it's just bad. So, since their ridiculous affectation is completely non-genuine, and their happy-go-lucky attitude actually derives from idiotic narcisism and a need to virtue signal their oh so cute positive view of everything regardless of anything, rather than actual genuine appreciation for what they're deffending, they have to devolve their whole line of arguments to "ignore the haters 🥴", they have to pretend that people pointing the flaws don't exist, because in not having any genuine appreciation for the thing being discussed, they have no way to defend or counter-argument the negative comments.
EXACTLY!!!!!!
 

Diego Lima

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Positive notes for me: Scovillain, Ancient Donphan, Volcarona and Salamence, the knight duo, are designs that I like here.
 
Top