5th Generation Pokemon Thread

[RockstarComplex]

Use this thread to discuss all the Pokemon from Pokemon: White and Pokemon: Black.

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Personally I am looking at some of these Pokemon and I am embarrassed. I thought Bidoof was the worse of the worse, but some of these look like they were drawn by cartoonists for Nickelodeon. I know that this game is aimed towards young teens but you have to remember that the people who played the games from the original Red all the way until Heart Gold/Soul Silver are still playing as well. Some of these cutesy little Pokemon are retarded. I wouldn't bother with them if it weren't for the fact that I would need them to complete a future Dex. These Pokemon make me miss the originals. My favorite Pokemon is still one of the 1st Generation Pokemon.

Not all of the 5th Generation Pokemon are bad. I'm looking at Roopushin and I am like, "Bad ass." I guess the good balance the bad, but the bad are just awful to look at. Another one like Meguroku's whole Evolutionary Chain looks like something I would want.

Deep down I am hoping that when they do the Anime / Manga for these particular Pokemon, we find out they are the deformed, retarded cousins of better and more likeable Pokemon. That or there was some weird experiment/accident that made them all so cutesy and colorful. I look at one Pokemon and it's got ten different colors. What happened to just two or three?

Also, what happened to the evolved forms of previous generations? Your telling me that when you were sitting there making new Pokemon, you didn't look back and go, "we could give Vulpix a third stage of evolution." With 493 possibilities, you would think that they could make another stage of evolution for at least six or seven Pokemon.

Deep down though, I just wonder if the creators have gotten lazy. I'll leave you with Morobareru which is the laziest I think the creators have gotten:



Ranting over...

- RockstarComplex

[quantumzed]

Oct 1, 2010 1:10:24 GMT -5 RockstarComplex said:

Also, what happened to the evolved forms of previous generations? Your telling me that when you were sitting there making new Pokemon, you didn't look back and go, "we could give Vulpix a third stage of evolution." With 493 possibilities, you would think that they could make another stage of evolution for at least six or seven Pokemon.

Sadly, I think this is the reason for some of the poorer designs, at least in an indirect way. Each generation has had new additions to different evolutionary chains, and those new evolutions have always been some of the best designs in the franchise. But Black and White buck this trend entirely.

The creators didn't want to make "another Pokemon game", they wanted to recreate the overall experience of Red and Green. In other words, they wanted to make a game that old players would enjoy not because of nostalgia (like HeartGold and SoulSilver), but rather because it creates a completely different world that defies the players' expectations. This also means that like Red and Green, they didn't want to rely on old favorites to round out the roster of available Pokemon in the region.

In that regard, I would say they've succeeded. Seeing the new animations was one of the first things that literally made me say "wow", something that hasn't happened since Gold and Silver. HeartGold certainly had its moments (Ho-oh returning to the Bell Tower, seeing New Bark Town in full color and 3D for the first time), but running across the bridge to Hiun City, with the camera panning up and around, was absolutely amazing. Hiun is a sprawling metropolis that manages to make Goldenrod City look like a podunk town in the middle of nowhere. To me, the world of Pokemon has always been an endless string of sleepy little towns, and Hiun City completely blew me out of the water.

I will concede that many of the Pokemon are pretty poorly designed. Banipucchi and its evolutions are retarded ice cream cones, for example. But every generation has had its share of bad designs. Even Red and Green are not immune. Going down the list, I'll name Dugtrio (it's three angry Diglett glued together), Mr. Mime (horrible living doll thing), Tangela (a bunch of vines with feet), Weezing (two Koffing glued together), Exeggutor (walking palm tree with stoned-looking coconut faces), Voltorb (upside-down pokeball), Electrode (bigger upside-down pokeball), Magneton (three Magnemite glued together. Seeing a pattern?), and Weepinbell (yellow flower bulb with a giant pink mouth). Of course, your mileage may vary on these, but I feel that they're less "classic" and more "outdated". They looked awesome to my nine-year-old eyes, but when I see them now, I realize that it's just retro-goggles.

Some of the new Pokemon look stupid, yes. But some of them are also pure, unfiltered awesome. Wargle is the coolest Normal/Flying type in the history of the Pokemon franchise, Choroneko and Leparudasu are somehow cute and completely badass at the same time, Aaken and its evolution Aakeosu are goddamned raptors, Shibirudon, in addition to being some kind of badass electric eel/creature from the black lagoon hybrid, also has no type weaknesses thanks to Levitate, Mebukijika combines Bambi's dad with pure GAR, Denchura is an electric tarantula, Kojofuu and Kojondo are weasels that know Kung Fu (Kojondo is especially notable for being a pure fighting type who isn't all, "lolmuscles, I punch you"), Kirikizan is Kamen Rider in Pokemon form, and Urugamosu (Ulgamoth) is an Atlas Moth combined with Mothra that spits fire everywhere. Note that I didn't name any of the starters or legendaries. For the first time, I am actually having trouble picking my final team for the Elite Four because there are actually more than six Pokemon I really like. Wargle and my starter Jaroda are a given, and Kirikizan and Ulgamoth will almost definitely make the grade, but I can't decide on my last two.

tl;dr - Retarded ice cream cone is retarded. Ignore the stupid Pokemon and grab a Wargle. Kill everything with pure GAR and WIN.

[RockstarComplex]

I don't deny that some of the past generation's Pokemon were really awful as well. The problem is that starting with the first generation which was about 90% awesome and 10% failures, each generation has gotten worse. Now we are at the fifth generation and it's about 40% awesome and 60% failures. Then again though, it could just be that under my first impressions of these new Pokemon (many of which I hadn't seen until yesterday), I have judged too quickly.

I have noticed in the past I would hate a song upon my first listening but like it a lot as it went on. I'm sure that my opinion on some will change. I'm just worried that it won't be on enough. That I will still feel like more than half of them are completely stupid. It all boils down to the fact that they made a lot of them what I call, "cutesy."

Back when the first generation rolled around, everyone loved Pikachu. Pikachu looks like a yellow mouse. Most people don't find mice "cute." It was his personality on the television show that attracted people to him. With the other first generations it was their natural designs (almost plain looking) that attracted players. You grew to love the Pokemon, not because they looked cute but because you found that through playing one Pokemon or one Pokemon Type would attract you. For me it was Ninetails and Fire.

Now though it seems like the designers are going out of their way to make the Pokemon look cute. They want you to be like, "awww." when you see them. It's like they asked my third year old cousin if she thought this design for a Pokemon was cute or not. If she said yes, they made it a Pokemon. I just find it hard to take some of these Pokemon as serious battlers when they are more dolled up and pretty than a high value prostitute.

To add to this, once again, back in older generations, it seemed that when they were designing a Pokemon they only gave them about three different colors. Weezing was Purple, White, and Red for it's mouth. Jynx was Yellow, Red, Black and a little white for the eyes. Now look at some of these newer Pokemon. Shinpora for example: It is Blue, Red, Black White, Yellow, Green, and maybe a little Gray. Why? Is our minds so ADD based that to attract us to something nowadays is to make it multi-colored?

You might be right about the retro-goggles. Things did seem better when I was a young teen. Maybe I have grown up to expect the same things but aren't getting them. It may be like how a drug user searches for the same high they got the first time, every other time they try a drug. Maybe I keep hoping that I will find another generation of Pokemon that I will love as much as the first generation.

In the end though, I do love most if not all of the ones you listed at the end. There are some really brilliant Pokemon, but I guess I feel let down that you can go from Brilliant to Bastardly by just scrolling down one in your Pokedex. I love all the animations but when I see a Mushroom that looks like a Pokeball, I worry for the genre. What's next, a traffic cone Pokemon?

[quantumzed]

Oct 1, 2010 16:21:33 GMT -5 RockstarComplex said:

What's next, a traffic cone Pokemon?

VEELSEE used STARE!
But nothing happened!
QUANTUMZED used TIP OVER!
It's super effective!

[RockstarComplex]

I admit it, I chuckled. It's sad when there may one day be a Pokemon with less skill than a Magikarp. I mean, just think, a strong gust of wind would defeat the potential Traffic Cone Pokemon. Literally all a Flying Pokemon would have to do is blow on it a little and it would be super effective.

I'm going to assume the Ice Cream Pokemon is just the same. A Charizard walks over and blows fire onto the Ice Cream Pokemon, and all the sudden we have a dead Pokemon.

[quantumzed]

Evolution favors the 8-foot-tall flying lizard with a flaming tail, not the dinky ice cream cone. I think maybe the reason why the designs have slipped (and have been slipping) is because the designers have stopped thinking about how different pokémon might actually interact in the wild. Seviper and Zangoose were both fairly solid designs, and both their descriptions mention how they fill the same niche on the food chain and fight because of it. I'm not going to go so far as to say that the pokémon designs need to be more realistic, but I do think the designers should pay more attention to the biosphere they've created. Maybe they could hire an actual biologist to consult or something?

AND WHERE'S MY DOLPHIN POKÉMON GODDAMNIT?

[RockstarComplex]

I was going to say, did they really run out of possible animal based Pokemon? I mean I don't remember a Polar Bear Pokemon. Plus we have Ekans/Arbok and Seviper, so why can't we have more than one type of a animal? If you can't do animal based Pokemon, then try a human-like (ex: Hitmonlee) Pokemon for example. Plus when they can make amazing looking Legendaries that don't seem to be based on anything but pure design skills, it makes me wonder why we get Pokemon based on Food.

[quantumzed]

I'd imagine part of it is just cultural differences; Game Freak is targetting Japan as their primary audience and designing pokémon that appeal to their chosen demographic. For example, no one in America knows what the hell Manaphy and Phione are, since to us they look like blue blobs of slime with big eyes. As it turns out, they are based on Sea Angels, which are considered cute in Japan.

Still, I have no idea why Japan would find an ice cream cone pokémon appealing, unless of course Game Freak's goal is to make everyone hungry. Mission accomplished, guys.

[RockstarComplex]

I didn't know that.. Hmm. Then why don't they base it off those myth based legends they have over there. Like the Oni? I mean I would totally take a bad ass Demon Pokemon over a Ice Cream one.

[Francis]

They're all terrible and I hate them.

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...But seriously, Denchura is my bro.