Starting with Ruby and Sapphire, every main series game introduced a new Pokémon or at least a new form of an existing Pokémon. Firered, Leafgreen, and Emerald all introduced Deoxys formes, Platinum introduced Origin Forme Giratina as well as the different forms of Rotom, HGSS introduced Spiky-eared Pichu, BW2 introduced Black and White Kyurem, ORAS introduced the Primals and several Megas as well as Cosplay Pikachu, and USUM introduced several new Pokémon as well as Necrozma's formes. The pattern was finally broken with (what else?) BDSP.
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"Patterns" in Pokémon generations
- Thread starter Codraroll
- Start date
Does the Shadow Giratina count?
This is literally a pure numerical pattern (the digits in multiples of 111) that has no relation to Pokemon at all. Are we really that desperate to find patterns?
I have found a few patterns that aren't broken yet!
*Ahem*
Every Generation so far has introduced...
- A Grass/Fire/Water trio of Pokémon who evolve twice
- At least one Legendary Pokémon with a BST over 600
A pattern I just recently started thinking about again because I’m not sure we’ll ever see this again was with the Pokémon movies, and how every Pokémon that could be considered one of the main stars of that movie has some form of type interaction with the others. Admittedly most of these aren’t actually seen in battles, but alas, a few of the more notable examples I can think of include:
- Lucario’s Fighting Type being super effective against all of the Regi Trio (Also note that Mew’s Psychic typing doesn’t beat Lucario fully thanks to it being half Steel)
- The legendary birds and Lugia having some disparity due to all sharing a Flying-Type (Zapdos gets the biggest advantage if you’re wondering)
- Both Diancie and Xerneas naturally win against Yveltal (Rock & Fairy Vs. Dark/Flying)
- Dialga’s typing beats Palkia’s and Darkrai’s in a head-to-head sweep since Steel still resisted Dark in Gen 4
- Volcanion’s typing completely sh**s on Magearna’s typing
- Celebi’s Grass typing beats Suicune’s Water typing, and for the purposes of a completely different movie Celebi both shares a type with and loses against Zarude at the same time (Grass/Psychic moment)
- A handful of other movies not listed in previous examples instead rely on “mirror matchups” of Pokémon whose typings go even against each other because they’re shared (Mewtwo, Lati@s, the Unova Dragons, etc.)
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
...
...is that really a pattern?
I mean... most Pokemon have some form of type interaction with others, it's how the system works. Obviously some types are neutral, but by the law of averages if you repeatedly group two or more Pokemon together some will display advantages or disadvantages against the others.
But I'm not really sure what the examples you cite are supposed to demonstrate. Lucario has a type interaction with the Regi trio... well, Zoroark doesn't have any type interactions with the beast trio. Do either of those things say anything about the respective movies those Pokemon headline?
Unless there's a deep symbology I'm missing I don't see why this is significant, nor why it's something we might not ever see again (?)
...is that really a pattern?
I mean... most Pokemon have some form of type interaction with others, it's how the system works. Obviously some types are neutral, but by the law of averages if you repeatedly group two or more Pokemon together some will display advantages or disadvantages against the others.
But I'm not really sure what the examples you cite are supposed to demonstrate. Lucario has a type interaction with the Regi trio... well, Zoroark doesn't have any type interactions with the beast trio. Do either of those things say anything about the respective movies those Pokemon headline?
Unless there's a deep symbology I'm missing I don't see why this is significant, nor why it's something we might not ever see again (?)
Speaking of the Regis and patterns, I used to expect Regidark would be coming soon. Because the Regis all weak to fighting and some theories said that the Regis are representing their "Ages".... Dark ages, yeah Regidark would be an obvious shoo-in..... not.
I was moreso just wondering if we’ll ever actually have a new Pokémon movie again, not only was the last one with Ash like three years ago or something but Ash isn’t even with us anymore. I guess we could always get a movie with the Horizons cast but that’s getting into wishlisting territory.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
It remains to be seen but I suspect it's something the pandemic may have killed for good.
You'll note we've not had any mythicals since Gen VIII either, which is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation (is it "what's the point in creating new mythicals if we're not making movies" or is it "what's the point in making movies if we're not creating new mythicals"?) but maybe they don't consider it worth the effort any more.
To be fair, I think Calyrex (and the two horses) is a mon who is just asking for a movie. It has more of a storyline in the games than just about any mythical before it, at least in recent years. Sure, it's technically classified as a legendary and we don't get movies based around legendaries any more, but there's no reason they can't make one again (and they kind of did with the relatively recent Mewtwo movie). Zoroark, Lucario, and Unown got their own movies and they're just regular mons, not even legendaries.
It really just comes down to "are regular movies profitable any more?" to which I think the answer is perceived as a no, especially considering what a genuine success Detective Pikachu was. Detective Pikachu dwarfed the other movies considerably, and I expect we will get higher-budget and more irregular movies over the prior model of "low-budget movie every year", because it's probably more profitable and better for keeping the brand relevant. Detective Pikachu was an event, the Zarude movie wasn't, even if my 3-year old sister prefers the Zarude movie over Detective Pikachu by a long shot. (Side note her least favourite is the Zoroark movie because she doesn't understand the Illusion concept, which is interesting to me lol).
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Sure, I think so too - this is what I meant by "not worth the effort", btb.
Calyrex had its story told pretty well in the DLC and it's more likely to get a 2-episode special event arc in the anime or something. Unless the ScVi DLC unexpectedly drops a mythical (could happen) I kind of feel like that old structure of extending game lifespans has gone; no need to pretend to be unaware of a species coded into the game at launch when you can just... introduce new species in a DLC anyway.
I remember hearing something about how the Pokémon movies around the time of… I think it was like 2002 or something? Started to fall off a giant cliff as far as “how successful was this movie compared to other movies out at the time?” The first three movies all performed extremely well around the world during the shift into the 2000s, but as early as Pokémon 4Ever these numbers started falling off relative to the competition. I’m not sure if this next part is actually true, but I even read somewhere that the last, like, three or four Ash movies were all of the least successful movies in the entire franchise revenue-wise.
This is pretty much just a longer way of me saying “these movies were screwed long before the pandemic happened.” It just so happens that said pandemic decided to kick an eternally 10-year-old man while he was already down.
I even find this very interesting because Pokémon 4Ever was by far and away my favourite movie as a kid. A bit of Celever lore for you here, the name is a portmanteau of Celebi and Snover, and I used the name in video games where you could name your own character from a young age because they were my two favourite mons. Celebi was because of Pokémon 4Ever, and Snover was because he was a… goofy little guy? I dunno, ask me 15 years ago.
So to hear that it was the point at which movies started declining in popularity is fascinating, but I suppose with franchises like this usually the sales of one movie are determined in large part by the quality of the prior one. Though this is still interesting because I’d rank the third movie over the second one by a mile, I think Pokémon 2000 is an early stinker and I’ve held this view since I was a kid.
Perhaps it’s genuinely as simple as “it was the second movie in gen 2 so hype was lower, and then because gen 2 -> 3 was a pretty big gap the hype never fully recovered to its prior point just by losing relevancy”? It’s a little sad if true, and is definitely a neat case study against the current shift toward less frequent but higher quality / budget movies we have now. In a wider sociological sense rather than anything specific to Pokémon, but still.
Up until gen 6, Eeveelutions were introduced in at least a pair where one was super effective against the other (worded such that the Paper/Scissors/Rock of gen 1 Eeveelutions fits).
This one particularly irks me because introducing Dragon Eeveelution in X&Y would have kept the pattern and given us the only missing Eeveelution type (making the not too egregious assumption that if Fairy existed pre-gen 4 it wouldve been special)
This one particularly irks me because introducing Dragon Eeveelution in X&Y would have kept the pattern and given us the only missing Eeveelution type (making the not too egregious assumption that if Fairy existed pre-gen 4 it wouldve been special)
Sylveon's entire purpose was just to advertise the new Fairy type. I don't believe there was some major plan with the "Two eeveelutions one who's super effective against the other" simply because A: If that was the plan, why wasn't Leafeon in game 1? Jolteon immediately blows that out of the water. B: Leafeon was planned for Gold/Silver before being dropped which also changes the plan and C: As for physical/special, Umbreon was originally going to be Poison which is a physical type.
So no, I never expect Dragon Eeveelution to exist and if they did choose to do another (and I hope not) I'd rather they revisit the Poison Eeveelution.
So no, I never expect Dragon Eeveelution to exist and if they did choose to do another (and I hope not) I'd rather they revisit the Poison Eeveelution.
While the waning hype is definitely part of it, the movies also dropped off a quality cliff after Gen IV. Plus BW anime backlash I guess. After a row of stinkers I presume the Japanese audience caught wind of the trend and stayed away from the theatre releases.
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I like to think of Umbreon and Sylveon as two very similar cases where one newly introduced type was intended to balance out a previously overpowered type (Psychic and Dragon respectively). If a Dragon-Type Eeveelution ever did happen it almost certainly would have been a Kalos Pokémon, but there’s also two reasons why this wouldn’t be a good idea either. Kalos already has a surprising amount of Dragon-Types as is, new and old, and Eevee also can’t learn any Dragon-Type moves (Hidden Power doesn’t count). There simply wouldn’t have been much of a reason if to use it compared to other Dragon-Types, much like how Espeon exists in Umbreon’s shadow. Pun intended.
Presumably any Drageon would get a notable supply of dragon moves. The real problem would be the lack of fire/ground coverage because Eeveeloutions basically only learn their own type(Iron Tail would make the meta miserable for everyone tbh).
Also nah, Espeon's basically always great. In-games it's a Psychic that you don't have to work for(compare to Abra), you usually get access to it early, and the limited coverage is just enough to not care. In the meta, it has Magic Bounce. Umbreon's a wall, which is great in the meta and awful in-game.
I was talking about how this Eevee would likely need a Dragon-Type move in order to actually evolve into one. Sorry if I made that confusing. Also, I still really like Espeon. I happen to have an entire holiday just for this Pokémon, in fact. In any case, when I said Espeon exists in its shadow, I’m talking from a Gen 2 marketing perspective. Umbreon is possibly the most “Gen 2” Johto Pokémon out there, if that makes sense. New evolution method shared with Espeon? Check. New typing instead of another freaking Poison-Type? Check. Highest stat just happens to be the one Gen 2 added? Check. It even gets new healing with Moonlight as well as Mean Look in the generation where trapping formally became a thing.
Where does this thread stand on patterns introduced later in the series that were changes to previous patterns? Like-- from B/W onwards, all TMs are infinite use... until SW/SH. I can see it being a slippery slope (Until S/M, all-party exp share can be toggled on/off!) but I picked that example because it's a very obvious one that stands out for lasting over 9 years through many, many games and which people were very certain was an 'obviously permanent' change (it still partly held true until BDSP even); and I think you could find a few others out there.
Either way...
- Until Gen V, there will always be a home console game released as a 'complement' to the main series games that allows you to take your Pokémon from the main games and battle with them in full 3D in multiplayer and battle facility-esque challenges
- Until Gen VII, all main-series Pokémon games feature gyms
- Until Gen VIII, all main-series Pokémon games were handled primarily by Game Freak
- Until Gen VIII, all remakes of main-series Pokémon games featured in some major way content and improvements from the third version
Either way...
- Until Gen V, there will always be a home console game released as a 'complement' to the main series games that allows you to take your Pokémon from the main games and battle with them in full 3D in multiplayer and battle facility-esque challenges
- Until Gen VII, all main-series Pokémon games feature gyms
- Until Gen VIII, all main-series Pokémon games were handled primarily by Game Freak
- Until Gen VIII, all remakes of main-series Pokémon games featured in some major way content and improvements from the third version
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I feel like we're heading into very murky territory if the removal of any longstanding feature counts as the end of a 'pattern'.
I could go to the Options page on Bulbapedia and copy out every time an option got added or removed and post those as patterns, but I don't think the ability to toggle Set mode in every main series game qualifies as a 'pattern' that ended in Gen IX.
I could go to the Options page on Bulbapedia and copy out every time an option got added or removed and post those as patterns, but I don't think the ability to toggle Set mode in every main series game qualifies as a 'pattern' that ended in Gen IX.
I don't like this definition since ORAS doesn't feature improvements from... Y'know, X2Y2, because it got canceled. If anything, the developers of X2Y2 put that cut content into Sun and Moon (ie. the Sycamore Assistants showing up and being older, Zygarde-Complete, bringing the cut Alien Invasion elements from XY)
ORAS got other things that X2Y2 would have had, though. It was going to have to explain more about Mega Evolution, and ORAS became the game that explained it instead.
Also, don't people count Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee as Generation 7? And yes, it was meant to be a mainline game. Another fun fact for you all: It was intended to be Junichi Masuda's last hurrah as a major force in Pokemon development, and as he loved (and IIRC still does) working with Pokemon Go, he made a Kanto remake with a lot of Go elements.
I meant the third version of what they're remakes of. For instance, ORAS included a lot of Emerald content (even if it was stuffed at the end). I did also forget about LGPE, but that one was directly based on Yellow itself!
ah ok my bad I'm pretty stupid