A server idea/Metagame Experiment

[P_K]

I recently replayed through Pokemon XD, because I wanted a Lugia, and was too impatient to wait for HGSS, and the oddest question popped up in my brain:

"How would Shadow Pokemon affect not only the 4th generation, but a multiplayer metagame as well?"

That's... pretty much it. I mean, obviously more would need to be done, like classifiying whether we'd use XD or Colesseum's Shadow Pokemon gameplay, and what moves we'd use, etc. So... that's, basically it.

 

[cyberzero]

I recently replayed through Pokemon XD, because I wanted a Lugia, and was too impatient to wait for HGSS, and the oddest question popped up in my brain:

"How would Shadow Pokemon affect not only the 4th generation, but a multiplayer metagame as well?"

That's... pretty much it. I mean, obviously more would need to be done, like classifiying whether we'd use XD or Colesseum's Shadow Pokemon gameplay, and what moves we'd use, etc. So... that's, basically it.

As far as I know, Shadow Pokemon aren't any different from the regular Pokemon except by means of different attack names. I don't see how that minor difference would be enough to warrant the work that would go into inputting them.

 

[Deck Knight]

The only difference would be that everyone would run Shadow Pokemon because there is no disadvantage to it. It would actually punish people with Shadow moves since they would be NVE, and essentially a wasted moveslot.

 

[Wichu]

There is a disadvantage, assuming the shadow Pokémon are the same as the ones in the GC games... Firstly, there are less than 150 species of obtainable shadow Pokémon. Secondly, half of those are NFE. And finally, they'd have only up to 4 available moves each; you can't teach them extra moves until they're purified.

If you allow any Pokémon to be a shadow Pokémon, then there's the problem of Hyper/Reverse Modes. As far as I can remember, Reverse Mode may cause the Pokémon to not obey, screwing up your strategy. I'm pretty sure Hyper Mode had a side-effect, too.

Anyway, there are some shadow moves which don't just deal damage; for example, Shadow Half could be used similarly to Super Fang.