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RTTP: The Pokemon. All 721 of them, and counting.

I was always disappointed in Electivire. Silly design aside, it performs 2 cardinal sins for an Electric-type; the lowering of its Speed stat and the focusing on its Attack. Losing out on Speed always a bad thing, and it just wastes so many points on bringing Electabuzz's mediocre attack stat up to par, so it's not even that strong on the physical side.

Hate it!
 
SatelliteOfLove said:
Elekid's dance in BW was amazing and endearing.

Also, reading about the Magma line: Fire's got 6 resists now? WTF.
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It oddly resists Fairy for whatever reason.

But it doesn't matter, because Fire's weak to Earthquake, Surf, and Stealth Rock.
 
SatelliteOfLove said:
Also, reading about the Magma line: Fire's got 6 resists now? WTF.
Click to expand...

Ice, Fairy and Fire are the only one's relevant really. Grass Pokemon aren't usually geared towards heavy offense (except Serperior, holy shit) and Bug has problems as an offensive measure (7 resists, wtf GameFreak). Lol Steel.

And the type defensively is kind of a liability due to all the Ground, Rock and Water moves being flung willy nilly with each generation.

Down with Fire types.
 
SatelliteOfLove said:
Elekid's dance in BW was amazing and endearing.

Also, reading about the Magma line: Fire's got 6 resists now? WTF.
Click to expand...

Fire has traditionally been one of the weaker types on the defensive front, despite its large number of resistances. It makes sense that they'd give it another resistance (a resistance to one of, if not the best type in the game) and that resistance really went a long way towards making Fire-types more viable.
 
PK Gaming said:
Fire has traditionally been one of the weaker types on the defensive front, despite its large number of resistances. It makes sense that they'd give it another resistance (a resistance to one of, if not the best type in the game) and that resistance really went a long way towards making Fire-types more viable.
Click to expand...

Yep this pretty much. Fire type needed a boost and they got one by resisting Fairy.

Now if only Game Freak apply some of that magic towards buffing Ice, they could use it.

Or they could be cold hearted and have the ice type gym leader say that they suck. ¬_¬;
 
Mr-Joker said:
Yep this pretty much. Fire type needed a boost and they got one by resisting Fairy.

Now if only Game Freak apply some of that magic towards buffing Ice, they could use it.

Or they could be cold hearted and have the ice type gym leader say that they suck. ¬_¬;
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XY commented on this with Gym Leader Wulfric stating that "I could be your most challenging opponent yet or I could be a total pushover." before you fought him.

EDIT: I realise that was the gist of your message. Damn I'm slow.
 
Watch Da Birdie said:
Blaine's Magmar. That's all I need to say when talking about Magmar in the show, and perhaps all I can say, as it never really had a huge role like that ever again.
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FUCK YEAH SEISMIC TOSS

giphy.gif
 
SatelliteOfLove said:
Elekid's dance in BW was amazing and endearing.

Also, reading about the Magma line: Fire's got 6 resists now? WTF.
Click to expand...

I dunno about singles since I don't play anymore, but in VGC, bulky fire types like Arcanine and Entei are pretty viable even with mons like Landorus-T running around. Fairy resist is wonderful when Sylveon and Mega Gardevoir are pretty popular.

Watch Da Birdie said:
It oddly resists Fairy for whatever reason.

But it doesn't matter, because Fire's weak to Earthquake, Surf, and Stealth Rock.
Click to expand...

Just another reason why VGC is the superior format. No dumb entry hazard moves like Stealth Rock and people just can't mindlessly spam stuff like Earthquake and Surf without consequences to their own team.
 
Watch Da Birdie said:
It oddly resists Fairy for whatever reason.

But it doesn't matter, because Fire's weak to Earthquake, Surf, and Stealth Rock.
Click to expand...

I like to think of Fire's resistance to be related to mythology like Prometheus giving the gift of fire to man and so on. Oftentimes in mythology, folklore and such man learning to use fire and iron/steel(represented by a Steel type weakness here, too) are the beginning of magic/gods being lost to the world. But that's just my take.

So I think of Fairy type in an odd mystical/magical sense, I guess. Though it's just a really weird typing when looking at the Pokemon that actually have it.
 
SenorArdilla said:
I have no idea what the people at GF were doing in they thought it was a good idea to make a Rock/Ice Pokemon.
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Probably the same thought process that they thought that making a Rock/Steel Pokémon would be a good idea...

Berordn said:
The same thing that people at GF were thinking when they gave an Electric/Flying Pokemon levitate.
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That will forever annoy me.

balladofwindfishes said:
Well, that's just a side effect of being Rotom. No Rotom form changes ability.
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Well I let them off in gen 4 since Rotom didn't change type but when they made it that Rotom types changes for it form in gen 5 they should have also given each one of them new abilities.

Rotom air having levitate when its' Electric/Flying is just pointless and a waste of an ability.
 
ywrmZvy.png

#127 - Pinsir
Bug

I'll begin this with a quote from Satoshi Tajiri, circa a 1999 Famitsu interview:

Ah, yes. I've gotten many complaints about Pinsir. Why didn't he learn more Bug moves? Why isn't he as powerful as Scyther? Well, when I decided to add him in Pocket Monsters Red and Green, of course he was a late addition included only because his physical appearance was simple enough for the team to quickly whip up a sprite. So I couldn't do as much justice as I wanted with him, but I worried people would be upset if I didn't create another powerful Bug-type Pokemon that Green players were able to catch.

Pinsir is somewhat of a contradiction---in the competitive scene, he's both powerful, yet sometimes comes across as a little worn down, a little tired. In a way, he was greatly influenced by my late father who passed away shortly beforehand. As a child, I viewed my father as a strict-disciplinarian, a man I both feared and respected. But when I grew up, I realized my father, that man I was saw as a powerful figure---as powerful as the stag beetles I used to watch fight---was often out of breath, and limped along. I wondered why I feared him so much? And in a way, that's how I've developed Pinsir as a character. Personally I'm quite close to the Pokemon, and thus I find it difficult to bring myself to give him an evolution.
Click to expand...

Pinsir is the Version Exclusive counterpart to Scyther, although I always thought it was pretty odd how they stuck Jynx, Electabuzz, and Magmar between the two. The PokeDex ordering in Generation I was really weird, wasn't it? Like Scyther, Pinsir was one of the most powerful Bug-types in Generation I, but that didn't mean much, as he didn't learn any Bug-type moves in Generation I whatsoever and even nowadays, he learns a grand total of three. Pinsir was pretty much fucked if he ran up against Gengar in Generation I, since his move set was entirely made up of Normal and Fighting-type moves, Seismic Toss, which hit Ghost-types in Generation I, being his only option other than using Mimic. Pinsir was and is inferior to Scyther in basically every way, except not having a 4X weakness to Stealth Rock, and he's a great example of the imbalance that exists between many counterpart Pokemon who were probably intended to be more or less of equal standing. Generation II introduced another Bug-type Pokemon who sort of became Pinsir's new counterpart as Scyther went off and evolved into Scizor, but even then Pinsir was still the weaker of the two. It wasn't till Generation VI that finally Pinsir got some love from Game Freak, getting a Mega Evolution---right alongside Scizor and his Gen II rival. Will Pinsir ever get something unique to call his own? Well, Pinsir was the only pure-Bug fully-evolved Pokemon till Generation III, so I guess that was something, right?

As the story goes, Pokemon was inspired by the Japanese tradition of catching and raising bugs to battle, so thus you could see Pinsir, representing one of the classic bug fighters the stag beetle, being very important to the franchise since he represents it as a base level. Or, so you'd think. Instead Pinsir gets a relatively tiny footnote in Pokemon history as simply "one of the original 151", when he probably should've been a mascot of sorts. Beetles are pretty cool---Medabots, Digimon, Kamen Rider, basically beetles can make great mascots, and it's shame Pinsir, nor really the later beetle Pokemon introduced, ever really took off in popularity. I don't think there's really an issue with Pinsir's design or anything like that that makes him unlikable, he just isn't as cool as Scyther, nor is he particularly cute, so he never really found a niche with fans, and his weakness in battle turning him into a running joke didn't help either. Looking at his original Generation I sprites, they gave him really cute looking little bead eyes, and I kind of wonder if Pinsir would've been more popular if his actual design looked like that and had a cuteness to him, rather than competing with Scyther in terms of coolness. C-could Pinsir be so cute?

While Pinsir looks far more like an actual bug compared to Scyther, he does take some liberties with the stag beetle, going with a far simpler anatomy that glosses over the way beetle bodies are segmented, and the trademark mandibles of the stag beetle serving as his actual horns rather than being attached to his mouth. Beetles are creatures that I think are inherently cool to kids, thus why Japanese kids love battling them, and I wonder if Pinsir would've benefited from looking closer to an actual beetle, bipedal and with the segmented body, to have a different feel from Scyther? I'm a big fan of Bug-type Pokemon, and I'd personally love some more straight-up beetle Pokemon---I died with happiness if we got a Legendary Trio, for instance, who were just gigantic beetles. One element of the stag beetle Pinsir does embody is that they seem to be the classic underdog in the "Beetle Brother" dichotomy, or the "heel", compared to the Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle, which our Generation II beetle Pokemon draws from. In Digimon, Kabuterimon (rhino) was the good guy opposite Kuwagamon (stag), the villain. Kamen Rider Gatack (stag) played second fiddle to Kabuto (rhino), although some fans will argue with you on that point. There's probably more examples, but it seems stag beetles are seen as inherently weaker---is that possibly because the Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle, with its horn resembling a Japanese soldier's helmet, possibly brings with it a sense of nationalistic pride the stag beetle just cannot match?

Pinsir's popularity and image wasn't helped by the show, his debut having him lose to a Metapod. And then he basically did nothing of interest till Johto, where he played the heel in his first "focus episode" opposite the new Generation II Pokemon. Yeah, so you're a kid watching Pokemon, and your impression of Pinsir is that he's weaker than a Metapod, and he's also a huge jerk with no redeemable traits, and if you bought Pokemon Blue (or Green for the Japanese kids) you got seriously ripped off. I mean, nowadays I actually like Pinsir and Magmar more than Electabuzz and Scyther, but surely Game Freak realized one version was getting all the Pokemon kids would love, right?

Po1mFZV.png

#M127 - Mega Pinsir
Bug/Flying

CHANGE STAG BEETLE. Mega Pinsir is---amazing. Well, like all Mega Evolutions, you can debate its purpose, its role in the overall Pokemon franchise, etc., but come on, even the most avid of Mega haters have to feel glad that Pinsir finally got something new, right? To be honest, as one of the first pure-Bug type Pokemon, I felt a little sad Pinsir lost that purity by becoming part-Flying, but it makes great use of it through the amazing Ability Aerilate, which turns all those Normal-type moves he acquired over the years into STAB-boosted Flying attacks, as well as an additional bonus of adding 30% more power to them making Mega Pinsir quite a vicious Pokemon. He's not the best Pokemon, but he certainly has more utility than the old Pinsir. It's just unfortunate he didn't get a Mega Evolution on his own, and had to share the spotlight with Scizor...

Even though Pinsir's body was so simplified it didn't look like he was hiding any wings under his shell, his Mega Evolution seems to suggest he always perhaps had wings, but the stylishly simplistic way he was drawn left out their presence under the back of his shell. In fact stag beetles have a rather "grounded appearance" to them, and I believe they only really fly around dusk during mating season, so many folks might be surprised to know they even have wings, which extends to Pinsir who also doesn't strike a person as having aerial capabilities. Apart from having the spikes that stick through the shell, Mega Pinsir's wings are actually pretty authentic to how a stag beetle's wings look, having the same orange veins bordering the transparent segment. Mega Pinsir is alright in my book, although I'm not too keen on the weird yellow eyes they gave him to look more intimidating, I thought Pinsir's old eyes were fierce enough.
 
Azuran said:
Just another reason why VGC is the superior format. No dumb entry hazard moves like Stealth Rock and people just can't mindlessly spam stuff like Earthquake and Surf without consequences to their own team.
Click to expand...

Stealth Rock is way less overwhelming now that Defog is a thing, and Surf and Earthquake aren't really spammed.

Singles is definitely less competitive than VGC though, lol. It's like one giant big clusterfuck of dangerous threats... I like it though.
 
dat Ganondorf quote

Heracross should have been Pinsir's evolution. Having Heracross as an opposite to Scizor would have worked well since one is power based, and the other is speed based.

And they look similar enough that it could work, certainly no less similar than Scyther to Scizor.
 
maybe it's just me but unlike Heracross Pinsir feels a bit less inviting. Maybe it's the face and head.
 
Aaronrules380 said:
I don't get how Heracross looks anything like Pinsir. At least Scyther and Scizor have similar silhouettes
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They're both beetles. One beetle into another beetle.

As a kid I sword Heracross was Pinsir's evolution and tried a bunch of different things to try and get Pinsir to evolve, like trading with a black belt lol
 
balladofwindfishes said:
They're both beetles. One beetle into another beetle.

As a kid I sword Heracross was Pinsir's evolution and tried a bunch of different things to try and get Pinsir to evolve, like trading with a black belt lol
Click to expand...

I mean yeah I get that. But they still don't look similar at all beyond that fact. If anything I'd expect a common preevolution, not one to evolve into the other
 
That quote from Satoshi is excellent. Pinsir has always come across as a strong but aging pokemon, I am happy to see my delusions are well founded.

Pinsir is cool, but pretty unremarkable. He was a great candidate for a Mega and he got a great one.
 
I could never see Pinsir evolving into Heracross, but I always thought they should have been linked by a pre-evolution
 
Weebos said:
That quote from Satoshi is excellent. Pinsir has always come across as a strong but aging pokemon, I am happy to see my delusions are well founded.

Pinsir is cool, but pretty unremarkable. He was a great candidate for a Mega and he got a great one.
Click to expand...

The Pinsir "quote" is a fake quote attributed to Sakurai about Ganondorf in Smash Bros
 
That's seriously a quote from Tajiri? I'd be interested in reading more about his thoughts.

Edit: I thought it sounded familiar. Damn it. XD
 
Remember Japanese bugs. They usually always get treated equally. With that said the kabuto to Pinsir's kuwagata took a gen to appear.

Watch Da Birdie said:
That is until you realize the TRUTH about Heracross' head, and your life is changed forever...
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The mouth thing? I always thought they were inconsistent about it.
 
It seems like they're moving to Heracross having a small head now, at least when he appeared in the Sinnoh League they went with that, and I'm pretty sure his 3D model in XY follows it as well if you turn it to the side.
 
Why did Stadium make Pinsir's teeth move independent of each other like they were weird fingers?

Also he he made a thumbs up symbol and then pointed into his mouth while vibrating his teeth things.

I wasn't a fan of Stadium Pinsir.
 
In fairness to the people who thought Pinsir would evolve into heracross though, gen 2 did have some weird ass evolutions (I'm looking at you remoraid)
 
You know how it looks like Heracross has a mouth between his eyes, and the show went with that?

Now it seems that's actually the separation between his head and body, and he has a small head that's jutting out.

BkJsPLX.png
 
Watch Da Birdie said:
You know how it looks like Heracross has a mouth between his eyes, and the show went with that?

Now it seems that's actually the separation between his head and body, and he has a small head that's jutting out.

BkJsPLX.png
Click to expand...

Took me a few seconds to properly see it, but fuck me that's hideous.

I will continue living my lie thank you very much.
 
Watch Da Birdie said:
It seems like they're moving to Heracross having a small head now, at least when he appeared in the Sinnoh League they went with that, and I'm pretty sure his 3D model in XY follows it as well if you turn it to the side.
Click to expand...

I like it that. Makes it more beetle-like.

Aaronrules380 said:
Ok, but why is that cannon an octopus?
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Dark Orchid said:
Remoraid is less weird when you think of it as a rifle evolving into a cannon. Used to confuse me, too.
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It's actually deeper than that.

Aside from the gun-cannon thing, both species have suckers.
 
Blasian Persuasion said:
I was wondering that today when I got signal beam. Why is that a bug move and not a electric move? It's like radio or satellite signals right?
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It was originally Volbeat's signature move until they realized keeping 10% of the already limited pool of bug moves to one Pokemon was a terrible, terrible idea and started spreading it out as soon as FRLG. Supposed to be based on Volbeat attacking with its flashes or something. No idea why Dewgong of all things was one of the first in line to get it in gen 3.
 
Pinsir was pretty cool despite its simplicity, though yeah its competitive potential was pretty low. I was so happy when it got its mega, even before its devastating power was known. First Pokemon I bred in X.
 
re: Magmar

Magmar vs. Charizard is still the coolest fight in the anime and you can't convince me otherwise
it's probably not actually half as cool as I thought it was when I was a kid.

balladofwindfishes said:
The Pinsir "quote" is a fake quote attributed to Sakurai about Ganondorf in Smash Bros
Click to expand...

goddamnit I knew that sounded familiar
 
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