I apologise to those 'machiners who are older than 30 here, but this weeks Big Question is aimed squarely at our younger contingent. Don't worry next week we will be back to ranting about comics. I think it will be about the worst superpower ever.
Considering that the new Pokemon games are coming out this Saturday, and considering its significance to certainly my generation, I thought we'd talk about some of the new stuff they're going to be introducing. However, first we need a question. So, what do you think of the changes they are making for this generation?
Warning, if you are avoiding any leaks before the release of the games, don't read on. However, I will not be discussing the unofficial leaks made since promotional copies of the games have been sent out last week.
Considering that Dragon is one of my favourite types, I'm a bit ambivalent on the new Fairy type. Saying that Dragon needed to be made less over-powered is a bit odd, as it's only super effective against it's self and only resisted by Steel, but considering that most Dragon type Pokemon are either Legendary or Pseudo-Legendary, I can sort of understand it (even though it would probably have been easier to just make more less powerful Dragon Types like Flygon or Altaria to bring the average down). I like the fact that it is weak against Poison, because Poison is a very underused type, despite its usefulness. I'm also glad that they've changed Steel's type effectiveness, because defensively Steel was majorly over-powered, considering a single type Steel Pokemon has more resistances than any dual type Pokemon. Now all we need is some Steel/ Poison type Pokemon or an easily accessible strong Steel or Poison type early on in the game, for those of us who like to start again from scratch each game to deal with those Fairy types (I will be majorly displeased if you can't get Steelix, Magnezone or Metagross in the game).
Moving on, I love the new Pokemon- Amie idea, considering this is basically what they've been doing in the anime since season one it's taken them long enough to get round to it. Same goes for customisable player characters, which I'm very excited about, because I tend to find myself getting board of the default look of the trainer.
Mega Evolution I'm not so keen on. Now, and don't hate on me for this, I always used to prefer Digimon to Pokemon. Sure I played the games and got the cards, but it was the anime I was really interested in at the time when this was all new and exciting (i.e. when I was a kid), and even the Pokemon anime seemed much more childish than the Digimon anime. Now, none of that is really relevant, it's just background, but Mega Evolution seems too close to Digimon for comfort to me. That was the BIG difference between the two when you were 10 and you really only knew Digimon through the anime and not the tamagochi things it was born out of. When Pokemon evolved they stayed evolved, when Digimon evolved they could change back (and they talked, which only Meowth could do back then), but now, when Pokemon evolve they stay evolved, except when they don't? Plus some of the Pokemon getting Mega Evolutions either A) Didn't need them because they were already O.P anyway (Charizard/ Garchomp I'm looking at you) or B) they would have been better off with normal evolutions (Mawile/ Absol, even Lucario). Having said that, and this is something we'll touch on later, I think the Mega Evolution designs are great, with a few exceptions. Garchomp now looks like he's been hit in the face with a hammer and it's knocked his teeth onto his chest. Venusaur hasn't changed at all and Mega Mewtwo X? I think that if they'd have mixed the two Mewtwo designs they could have had a really cool design, but instead we got headfins (which are ok, but I'm not too sure about the spoiler/ wing thing on his head) and weird flat feet and arm/ hip bulges. Either way, it'll be interesting to see what effect this has on the battling system in game and the storyline, I don't much care for competitive battling, so I don't care how this affects that. Oh yeah, before I forget, personal plea to Gamefreak here, can someone please fire the guy who thought Mega Kangaskhan was a better idea than doing what the fans wanted since Gen 1 and giving us a baby Kangaskhan and not just dumping the baby out the pouch for a little while in battle, I mean WHAT? (Sorry, I'm ok now).
Anyway. The new battling systems I'm pretty meh about. Sky battling only sounds like it could be fun in a flying type gym, but then you have Pokemon like Aerodactyl or Emolga who will wreck house. Hoard Encounters could be good if you can encounter hoards of Eevee (just imagine that), but otherwise, I tend to only catch one of each species so it just seems more effort for less reward. Plus after you attack you get beat on from every member of the hoard before you can attack again, which doesn't seem fair unless you are using MegaGarchomp or MegaMewtwo or something else ridiculously O.P, but I digress.
Anyway, now we move on to the new Pokemon and I think I can safely sum up my feelings about this gen's Pokemon with just 3 words. Noivern. Tyrantrum. Malamar. I mean dude. Noivern, it's a £@*^%$! bat- dragon speaker thing, what's not to love. And we've finally got some proper dinosaur fossil Pokemon and I'm not talking those weird ones we got in Gen 4 (ok, Rampardos was pretty cool, but Bastiodon? As a dino fan, when they give us a Ceratopsian Pokemon, it had better be a Triceratops, not what ever the hell they eventually used). But now we get an awesome bad-ass T-Rex Pokemon, thank god for that. And then we have Malamar. Strange design, like the creepy weird look, love the type combination. Psychic/ Dark, it's unique and I'm all for unique type combo's. I could run down the rest of the Pokemon, but lets just say Chespin has fallen out of favour since it turned into a balloon, I'm waiting until final evo's are confirmed before deciding between Fennekin and Froakie, Xerneus seems more interesting to me than Yvetal (but both are pretty cool) and I like most of the new Pokemon except the new fairy types (excluding Xerneus and Sylveon). Honestly, I hope that Flabebe, Spritzee and Swirlix get half decent final evo's (I refuse to believe what I have seen are going to be final evo's), because otherwise I'm going to get my Steelix and get to work.
Anyway, that's my opinions, so lets hear yours.
