waiting for prey
pokémon, pokémon, pokémon
hey folks! we’re past thanksgiving and i’m feeling… well, not re-energized exactly but maybe re-focused on what I want to do with this ian’s video game cavalcade. my main goal is getting a job, of course, but i’m hoping i can do cool things and keep my skills up to par while i’m looking for the most mythical thing in games writing: decent full-time employment.
today is all about pokémon scarlet and violet. tell your friends!
delibird is a killing machine (literally)
despite being one of the dorkiest pokémon in franchise history, delibird was recently banned from all but the most inclusive pokémon scarlet and violet competition. okay, so it isn’t delibird exactly, but it’s still pretty funny.
pokémon scarlet and violet’s expanded pokédex includes two groups of pocket monsters, ancient pokémon and future pokémon, known collectively as paradox pokémon. as the individual names suggest, these pokémon come from different time periods, remixing known pokémon species into new forms heavily influenced by their original eras. scream tail, for instance, is the primitive form of jigglypuff, while iron bundle is basically delibird with robotic sheen.
(honestly, all the forward-looking paradox pokémon look like they came from that spongebob squarepants episode where squidward travels to a future where everything is coated with metallic spray paint, but i digress.)
silliness aside, it turns out iron bundle is strong. like, really strong. most of this boils down, as freezai explains above, to iron bundle’s incredible offensive stats as well as the same-type attack bonus it gets from already-powerful moves like freeze-dry and hydro pump. according to the original ban announcement on competitive pokémon hub smogon, the penguin automaton is “more akin to futurama’s robot santa claus than the one we know and love.”
“it’s true that iron bundle can be played around,” the smogon post continues, “but when this is reliant on getting predictions right, dodging hydro pump, and sacking pokémon, it winds up being a pokémon that is often heavily constraining for most structures to play against in practice. as such, iron bundle has been voted by the council to be seen as an unbalanced presence.”
listen, i’m not a connoisseur of pokémon competition by any means. i barely understand what any of this means and, as such, you’re better off just watching the freezai video than listening to me. but the fact remains that delibird being relegated to an “uber” tier reserved in previous games for legendary pokémon like mewtwo, groudon, and eternatus is hilarious and i couldn’t help but tell everyone about it. this is the part where we all laugh.
primeape’s ghostly evolution was first teased six years ago
here’s something i haven’t seen a lot of folks talk about: annihilape, the cool new fighting- and ghost-type primeape evolution introduced in pokémon scarlet and violet, was first mentioned in a mainline game from two whole franchise generations ago.
like most games in the series, 2016’s pokémon sun includes a reference to primeape’s legendary rage issues in its pokédex, noting that “it has been known to become so angry that it dies as a result.” and while the pig-monkey hybrid doesn’t literally have to die to become annihilape in pokémon scarlet and violet, the evolution’s secondary ghost typing feels like a conscious nod to this bit of trivia. and going by what we know about pokémon development, it’s possible someone started fleshing out the final stage of the mankey line long before work began on the latest installments.
“people submit [pokémon] designs for one generation, and they don’t get approved,” former pokémon designer james turner told game informer in 2019 before the release of pokémon sword and shield. “it might be just because it doesn’t fit within that region or it might be because the idea is not fully cooked yet. so they will go away with that design, and then the next region, the next game will start and they’ll bring it back, and maybe they’ve modified it a little bit, or maybe it fits better within the lineup, and those designs go ahead.”
my memory isn’t what it used to be, but the only other time i can recall something like this happening is when the first episode of the pokémon anime teased pokémon gold and silver legendary ho-oh long before anyone knew the pokémon company was working on sequels to the first pokemon generation. i can only imagine what kind of firestorm the phoenix’s debut would have ignited in the fanbase had the internet been as prevalent as it is today.
if anything, we might want to pay more attention to pokédex lore moving forward; who knows what kind of teasing the pokémon company is hiding behind outwardly silly gags.
i gave up on one of my favorite new pokémon because of its annoying battle mechanics
pokémon scarlet and violet includes several new pocket monsters to train. one of my favorites is klawf, a rocky crab-like pokémon that first appears as one of the game’s giant, mystical herb-guarding titans before it can be caught. i was deadset on making this weird little dude a part of my team from the first time i saw it, but sadly, klawf’s most common ability makes it incredibly tiresome as a battle partner.
on paper, klawf’s anger shell ability sounds incredible. i mean, getting boosted attack, special attack, and speed once its health drops below half at the expense of defense and special defense? sign me up! the only problem is how this mechanic plays out in a typical pokémon scarlet and violet battle. going under half health is a pretty common occurrence, even for a pokémon as beefy as klawf, at which point the game goes through every stat change one by one.
as you can see in the video above, anger shell triggering results in a drawn-out sequence of animations and messages indicating every individual alteration it makes to klawf’s attributes. that means 15 seconds of mashing the A button when, in a perfect world, the game would speed through (or entirely forgo) the graphical flourishes and list every stat change in a single tidy message. it really puts a damper on what are otherwise a great pokémon and ability.
and so, after only a few fights, i made the decision to remove klawf from my party very early into my pokémon violet playthrough. looking back, i don’t think the craggy crustacean would have made much of a difference in more challenging fights, but it was still a huge bummer. maybe i should go back and level little gidget up now that i’m in the endgame, or at least take it out of storage for a battle-free stroll around paldea.
good stuff you should check out elsewhere
How one magazine told the western world about Pokémon (Paul Davies, Time Extension)
How choosing ‘Girl’ in early RPGs inspired today’s game designers (Juno Stump, Polygon)
Why Roberta Williams came out of retirement to remake a beloved text adventure (Duncan Fyfe, Waypoint)
On organizing my Skyrim library and living in a human body (Deirdre Coyle, Unwinnable)
Welp, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet players found a way to kiss their monsters (levi winslow, Kotaku)
moment of zen
hope you all didn’t mind the heavy focus on pokémon scarlet and violet. now, if you don’t mind, i still need to explore area zero. take care and be sure to hit some of these buttons; it really helps me out!