Brokémon at the Inventory

StericaSterica YesRegistered User, Moderator mod
edited September 2013 in Social Entropy++
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Welcome to the SE++ Pokemon Thread! Pull up a chair, relax, and discuss everything pokemon as we rapidly approach the release of the next generation of games: Pokemon X and Y!

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Let's get right into the meat of this: the new generation. While Gen Five played things a bit more conservatively, Six is really mixing things up. Here's the blow-by-blow, and if you've missed a few generations since you last pokemon game, then just scroll past this and catch up on older changes first.
  • Full 3D Graphics: Yowza! The first pokemon to abandoned its cherish sprite tradition and go for fancy polygons and whatnot. No doubt the game will look pretty awesome with the 3D cranked up.
  • New Type, Fairy: Designed to rein in dragons a bit, Fairy is so far super effective against dragon and not very effective against fire. It's position in the type chart hasn't been fully revealed yet, but they're anticipated to be weak to poison.
  • Mega Evolutions: Certain pokemon can evolve even further. In reality this is more like different forms than legitimate evolutions, as they revert to their original species after the battle ends. Mega evolution requires a specific held item, and you have an option to active the mega evolution while in a battle. What happens depends on the pokemon. Some get new abilities, other get different stats, and some like Mega Ampharos even get a new type.
  • Horde Encounters: Sometimes you fight a whole swarm of wild pokemon at once, typically pokemon you'd expect to operate in a herd mentality (a herd of Tauros and Miltank is the obvious example). Obviously this is be a bit more challenging since you pokemon has to endure several attacks at once.
  • You can ride pokemon, which I guess replaces the bike? No idea if this is limited to specific pokemon yet.
  • There will be an app called Pokemon Bank, which allows you to store pokemon on Nintendo's servers. It is the largest pokemon storage yet, allowing for 3,000 pokemon to be stored. The catch is that it's a paid service with an annual fee of five bucks.

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  • Sky Battles: These are optional battles that, at least so far, are like normal battles except only flying types and/or pokemon with Levitate may participate. Moves and abilities COULD change, but so far no details.
  • Pokemon-Aime: Feed and play with your pokemon, which probablys interplays with happiness. It looks like a combination of Pokemon and Nintendogs.
  • Super Training: Finally, at long last, proper EV training complete with ways to track your progress for a particular pokemon.
  • New Region: Kalos, a region based on Paris.
  • MORE POKEMANS: We're not even sure of how many more.

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Are you an old veteran of Red and Blue? Maybe you took a break after Platinum? Or maybe the nostalgia bug has bitten you? It doesn't matter, because here is a very short history on each generation including the changes each brought to core gameplay and how "good" it is or isn't to revisit.

Note: Generation I and II are currently the only generations that cannot trade with other generations. So long as you have the equipment, it is entirely possible to trade pokemon from Generation III all the way to Generation VI.

Generation I
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Hardware: Game Boy
Main Games: Red & Blue
Special Edition: Yellow
Comments: Sometimes you can't go home again. While there's no doubt that Generation 1 will hold a fond place in our hearts for introducing us to this crazy franchise, it has a boatload of issues that will probably hamper any replays. The game also lacks a ton of the Quality of Life additions that modern games have, which will further hurt the experience. Sometimes these things are better left in the past.

Generation II
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Hardware: Game Boy
Main Games: Gold & Silver
Special Edition: Crystal
New Features: Two new types (dark and steel), pokemon can hold items, Special stat split into special attack and special defense, genders added along with breeding, day of the week and time added
Comments: There are some people that claim Gen I was the peak of pokemon. Then there's basically everyone else who will argue Generation II is the, er, Golden Age of pokemon. It's a stronger argument, with significantly more balanced gameplay, fewer bugs and general issues, and a ton of content. It's so far the only generation where you can visit the previous generation's region and fight old gym leaders. You can even fight the protagonist from the previous generation. Crazy. This is probably the earliest you can go back and still find pokemon more or less playable.

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Generation III
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Main Series: Ruby & Sapphire
Hardware: Game Boy Advance
Main Games: Ruby & Sapphire
Special Edition: Emerald
Remakes: Fire Red & Leaf Green
New Features: Pokemon have passive traits called "abilities" such as immunity to sleep or one-hit kill moves, double battles allow for 2v2 matchups, pokemon have natures that exchange 10% of one stat for 10% of another, the player character actually has a dad
Comments: I'm overly harsh on Gen III sometimes. I don't like most of the designs of many of the pokemon, and at the time Nintendo had no way of obtaining most of the old school pokemon on Ruby/Sapphire, forcing you to buy the remakes or the Gamecube RPGS to get the ones you want. It isn't TERRIBLE, however, and I actually recommend the remakes if you really are in the mood to relive Gen I.

Generation IV
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Hardware: Nintendo DS
Main Game: Diamond & Pearl
Special Edition: Platinum
Remakes: Heart Gold & Soul Silver
New Features: Attack Type no longer determines if a move if physical or special (ie Thunderbolt is special whereas Thunderpunch is physical), internet trading and battling added to the series
Comments: I think Gen IV revitalized the series for a lot of people. Dual screen is really nice for pokemon, and internet finally brought communities together in a tangible way. As usual, the remakes are really awesome although apparently getting increasingly hard to find these days. Not a lot of complaints here. I especially like some of the evolutions for older pokemon like Yanma.

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Generation V
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Generation Five
Hardware: Nintendo DS
Main Game: Black & White
Special Edition: Black 2 & White 2
New Features: TMs have infinite uses. You're Welcome.
Comments: Gen V is a pretty interesting game. The main series has this weird "alternate history" feel because you don't see any of the older pokemon until you beat the Elite Four, so you see a lot of reimagined pokemon like a new take on Machop, Geodude, Zubat, and other mainstays. The storyline was more at the forefront this time around with the villain actually questioning the ethics of pokemon training and being like a Pokemon Animal Liberation Front. Interesting though it doesn't really explore the issue like it could. This was a pretty brief generation, so there's not even a Ruby/Sapphire remake this time around.

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This is less of a direct FAQ and more of a general information dump that should answer any questions.

Pokemon X and Y release Worldwide on October 12th. You can buy the games the old fashion way or on Nintendo's eShop. If you are planning to buy a 3DS to play Pokemon on, then there will be a 3DS XL/Pokemon bundle available at launch. On September 27th, you can purchase a special blue or red X/Y themed 3DS XL. They are quite snazzy. It's worth noting that the Pokemon themed XLs DO NOT come with a copy of X or Y, and (as far as we know) the XL/Pokemon bundles are just generic XLs. Do not ask me why they did this.
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This is the Japanese one, but the design is the same.

If you ARE a new 3DS buyer, then I cannot stress enough to get the XL over the original 3DS. You'll appreciate the better battery, larger screen, and chunkier hardware for holding. Perhaps you are strapped for cash, but Pokemon is something you have to play RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. Then try the Nintendo 2DS, which would cost you about as much as a normal 3DS when you buy it with Pokemon. It's decent savings, but you give up the 3D, clamshell design, and that beautiful screen of the XL.

You can transfer Pokemon from Black/White 1 & 2 to X/y. There will be an app that allows you to store pokemon from your Gen 5 games and then swap out your Gen 5 game for X or Y and use the app to finish the transfer. This is supposedly done inside of the Pokemon Bank app, but that would be really shitty of Nintendo to place transfer behind a pay wall. We'll see.

Websites
Bulpedia: Basically the biggest load of ANY kind of pokemon information on the internet. WARNING: this site will probably run like shit for a solid month after X/Y release. Check out alternatives.
Serebii.net: I don't really like the Serebii guy, but it's a good source of information and is another alternate pokedex should others be down.
Smogon: The site for competitive multiplayer. Has tier listings as well as decent articles and information on how to begin assembling a team. Also has individual critques of each pokemon's competitive capabilities, complete with some suggested movelists.
Pokemon Showdown: A very popular battle simulator complete with features like replays. It actually has a really nice, clean pokedex if you need one.

IVs and EVs

IVs are Individual Values and EVs are Effort Values.

An IV is a basically random numbers assigned to a specific pokemon. One Raichu may have high HP whereas another Raichu has lower HP due to the difference in HP IVs. For the most part IVs are random although breeding can influence them. It's best not to worry about IVs since in the long run they don't matter a terrible amount with a few key exceptions. Don't be the guy who resets their game 50 types to get The Perfect Legendary.

Effort Values is kind of like "stat experience" to further customize a pokemon's stats. For example, knocking out an Electrode will give a pokemon X Speed EVs, and every X speed EVs will cause that pokemon's speed to go up by one. There's a cap on the total amount of EVs you can have (regardless of what stat they're for) and there's also a cap on how many EVs of a particular stat a pokemon. EVs ARE considered important, and a bulk of forming your team is tweaking their stats via a process calling "EV Training."

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Hey, I hear people like this stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMnwB6neGlY

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMY2zbVuloM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmywDbnC5oc

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This is for stuff going on in the pokemon world and little things people on this forum put together.

Mega Blaziken: Until January, you can go online and get a free Torchic that is holding the Mega Stone necessary for Blaziken's mega evolution. Get it while you can!

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This will be where all the friend codes are kept. If you recently bought a 3DS, then you'll be happy to know that friend codes are on a per-system basis, so once you and your friend have added each other you're good to go for all future games. If you wish to be added to the list, then PM me or post in the thread I guess.

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