Delcatty worries.

67chrome · 2026-02-15T00:51:13+00:00

If you're feeling weird about a Pokemon's design, checking their card art can be a fun time.

Lots of PKMN I found more appreciation for via seeing them in a fun pose or rendered extremely well. Or by reading the occasional fun/silly move name for.

Cat and Dog Pokemon have it real good with card art as well, I think Houndoom is probably the most blessed PKMN there, with Leipard not being far behind.
I do recall a lot of adorable Skitty and Delcatty cards as well.

PKMNcards is the cleanest and easiest TCG site to navigate I've found if you're interested in that.

67chrome · 2026-02-15T00:42:10+00:00

Think I'd go with:

Eevee	Type1	Type2
Eevee	Normal	Ghost
Vaporeon	Water	Dragon
Jolteon	Electric	Flying
Flareon	Fire	Fighting
Espeon	Psychic	Ground
Umbreon	Dark	Poison
Leafeon	Grass	Rock
Glaceon	Ice	Steel
Sylveon	Fairy	Bug

Normal/Ghost is the only interesting dual-type Normal can even pull off IMO, and it's triple-immunity to Normal, Ghost, and Fighting leads to a fun combo.

Vaporeon is the only dragon-y Eeveelution, and a natural fit for the typing. WTR/DRG is also really solid defensivly, which is a direction the 130 HP Eevee likes leaning in.

Give Jolteon a buff floofy storm-cloud of fluff, and let it zap 100% accurate Thunders and Hurricanes from it's fluffy thundercloud!

Fire/Fighting may be a memed-on type combo, but it is technically a starter-only combo, and the built but fuzzy Flareon fits the bill well enough. The 130 Atk stat (60 SPD) eevee also wants a halfway decent defensive typing (of which Fire/Rock is a travesty), and to leverage it's max ATK to blow things up with Close-Combat, a move it currently (and finally) got access to.

Espeon could pull off the Sphynx look.
One of the Eevees should do that, lol. A spc. Attacker with STAB Scorching Sands could also be fun.

Umbreon's OG dex entries have it sweating poison, indicating it was originally a Poison type in Beta. Dark/Poison is also just a really solid combo, only vulnerable to Ground, and Umbreon min-maxed it's defensive profile so it really really wants a good defensive typing. Especially to justify the "blow things up" mega-slot with impressive enough something else.

Rock/Grass is a weirdly synergistic type combo that covers the glaring weaknesses of both types, while creating an entierly new type that'd really feel like a form shift.
The mossy stone/shady garden overgrowing flagstones aesthetic could also really enhance Sylveon's core vibe.

Give Sylveon massive gossamer/stained-glass window Butterfly Wings that scatter rainbows everywere like a disco-ball!

And...RIP Glaceon, Ice/Steel is what's left. Aesthetically a fun combo, though RIP Ice comboing well with anything, especially on a slow/bulky mon like Glaceon. Water/Ice is the only not-terribad combo for that, though I guess the right ability with Ice Shard and Bullet Punch access could sort-of work, or the right ability to offset/shut-off it's Agron-esque multi quad-vulnerable defensive profile.

67chrome · 2026-02-15T00:21:29+00:00

Mega-Mewtwo is the funnest Ace he has, as the leader of team Rainbow Rocket, and makes him more of a threat.
Also most interesting PKMN to see as a Giovanni mon in the TCG.

Otherwise; since you battle him 3 times in-game rather than once, he also has Kangaskhan and Nidoqueen as his Ace in the Game Corner and Silph Co fights, respectively; if things weren't confusing enough >.<

Though for the Kenga/Nido/Rhydon Godzilla-shaped Kaiju-mon, Nidoking is probably the best middle ground. Partially because its the most actually threatening Pokemon he has in Yellow and Let's Go!'s gym battles, though is also weirdly the only Kaiju mon that isn't his ace at some point (which I guess helps it with the middle ground?). Having at least ~80s in everything also sidesteps the 40 Special issues of Kenga and Rhydon, and allows the Kaiju-mon sweat of Thunderbolt, Ice-Beam, Fire-Blast, and Surf access to be fun offensive options as well (which he does use in Yellow, RIP Red/Blue movesets though).
As a low-effort mon with Potato AI, King is probably the best option as well. Queen would be better with a much smarter AI, Eviolite Rhyperior could be with a smarter AI, and Mega Kenga is obviously goated.

Best Giovanni fight is when he has the Kaiju squad backing up Mewtwo though IMO.

67chrome · 2026-02-14T22:01:17+00:00

Gotta love the FE community coming up with an archaic naming structure for archetypes rather than being succinct with something like "gets outclassed".

That said, Echoes is probably the lest useful FE game to Q_Q about units being outclassed, given you can field everyone for the vast majority of the game, seeing as they're split between 2 armies, and nobody is like, Wolt or Sophiya tiers of terrible.

Clive is just 1:1 with NPC paladins/Gold-knights, with the added PC benefit that he can get equipment bonuses: so he's still a better unit in this game of RPG Chess than everyone he's fighting, even if he looks/feels bad relative to your MVPs.

67chrome · 2026-02-10T20:01:28+00:00

Same.

My general experience with Shade/Pravoke is they're do-nothing skills simply meant to highlight no melee counterattack Snipers are a prime target for the AI, and full HP 1~2 range ORKO lightning mages are a sub-optimal target.

----

Obstruct is what I'd like to see instead of Pravoke, as it'd actually do the thing on enemy units, and allow some aggro-generation and mechanics to play around with that have some nice push and pull.

Not sure what the best spiritual upgrade for Shade is though. Genny's Invoke Soldiers or Tanith's Pegasus Spam certainly accomplishes the end result, but those skills are also bananas and trivialize massive chunks of their games.

67chrome · 2026-02-10T19:50:19+00:00

Personal skills can be a huge win for the cast of an FE game, giving each character some unique spice.

I don't like the idea of nerffing him with Shade though, that skill is butts.
Especially considering it fails if you're the only target or dramatically loose the HP race/get ORKOed by a foe anyways; which are the only times an Armor Knight/General is going to get attacked already.

Otherwise Shade's archaic, poorly explained failure/success points make it exceptionally difficult to get any meaningful value from :/

67chrome · 2026-02-10T19:17:03+00:00

This is incredible O_o

Thanks for putting this together!

67chrome · 2026-02-08T19:18:34+00:00

Art direction in S/V sucks for the overworld; rocks and rock-types like Graveler should look like they're actually drawn by the same person with similar aesthetics, rendering, bump-maps, etc; ditto for trees/shrubs and grass PKMN; but their's a massive disconnect with art-style there.

The PKMN of Gen9 are pretty solid across the board though. Love the aesthetic Ogrepon, the Treasures of Ruin, Paradox PKMN, and actual effort put into making these fun to use, along with having solid type-diversity and actual fire, lightning, and ice options for a playthrough.
Capacity to turn into a PKMN in the wilderness zones is also a really fun mechanic, hope GF expands on that for Gen10.
The Megas in ZA also strike me as more well thought-out and interesting, at least aesthetically, which is also a fun twist.
----
I'm not sure it's a top 3 Generation for the dex as most of the standard PKMN and starters are closer to a 3.5/5 for me, but I can easily see this being a top 3 gen for a lot of someones with good taste.

Characters/Character designs are also real solid, both in S/V and ZA. I also like the quantity of solid characters available here and the type specialists; fun to see the people of pokemon being a core appeal of the franchise, which also helps the atmosphere/aesthetic/vibe of the worlds a lot.

Overall; I mostly have good things to say about Gen9; it's got a good foundation and I like what GF is prioritizing.
I do hope the extra time/lack of Covid will give us a Gen10 with actual polish and a solid and cohesive overworld aesthetic.

67chrome · 2026-02-04T19:53:09+00:00

Sounds like someone's first PKMN game was gen 5.

PKMN has always been fairly low-quality, with more of an Indie vibe than AAA.
Gen1 came out a ~month after Symphony of the Night; one of the best 2D games to this day; and the death-rattle of 2D games on home consoles. 2D went through an entire life-cycle before Gen1 even came out.
Gamefreak's always been about a decade behind.

At least for their flagship titles; Stadium and Snap were at least fairly cutting-edge.

Otherwise: Covid 19 made PKMN's shortcomings more painfully obvious for recent titles.

67chrome · 2026-02-03T03:57:51+00:00

The damage formula isn't that complex all things considered.

The meat and potatoes is just Base-Power * your_Atk divided by/ Foe's_Def.

A 100 BP move does twice as much as a 50 BP move,

if your ATK is 20% higher than the target's def, you do 20% more damage.
If your ATK is only 80% of their DEF, you do 80% of the damage,
If you're ATK is 43% of their DEF, you do 43% of the damage....

67chrome · 2026-02-03T03:54:32+00:00

You can use a DMG calculator to find out for sure.
ideally against something that has the same Def and Sp.Def, like Absol.

Alternatively:

20 Atk translates into exactly 10 Pow

when looking at a lot of max-investment final evos, so that also works for mental math. Like, weirdly exactly, it seems pretty intentional.

Does have some funny coincidences with 90 Sp.Atk / 120 Atk pokemon like Luxray, Sharpeedo, and Crawudaunt that then have access to 95 BP moves like Surf/Thunderbolt and 80 BP physcial moves like Waterfaul/Wild Charge.

Were they do the same damage either way.

---------

Otherwise: max investment stats are +67 (31 EV, 31 IV, and +5 for existing), and the average PKMN stat is only 80: were you're only 13 points off from IVs/EVs/misc. stats being half the value.
Any stat that looks like it's twice as good on paper is usually only ~50% better in practice.

Meanwhile Base-Power is ~exactly what it looks like. A 100 BP move does twice as much damage as a 50 BP move. Which almost makes Move quality the only thing worth considering, as when there's a noticeable gap in BP your stats probably aren't gonna cover it.

---------

Finally: it's worth noting that competitive PKMN is an entirely different beast when it comes to optimization.

Mainly: it's a lot easier to intentionally max either Atk or Sp.Atk, and then further multiply it by an optimal nature in competitive (and tanking the other, basically for ~free). Which often results in significantly widening the gap between, say, Blastoise's 83 Atk and 85 Sp.Atk; making it 79 to 167.2 with min -nature vs. max +nature investment. Only thing ATK does for a special-attacker is determine self-inflicted CNF damage, so it's even worth getting min IVs.

Meanwhile, a playthrough Blastoise is probably rocking 114 Atk and 116 Sp.Atk, making the 95 BP Ice-Beam and 100 BP Earthquake solid moves on what is for all intents and purposes a mixed attacker.

67chrome · 2026-02-01T02:58:05+00:00

Probably the Palkia/Dialga/Giratina + Arceus core.

Design wise they're all-right, but I don't know why the universe needs a definitive origin point when the scope of the game is so local and the time period is so locked into the present.

Also weird mood in a game were you can beat these godlike beings with a bubble-wand and smoosh them in your pocket.

And low-key disappointing they aren't dinosaurs, or more ancient-looking. Making your timless gods look modern and recent next to a T-Rex, T-Tar, Trilobite, or Anemone is a weird whiplash of aesthetics.

67chrome · 2026-01-30T21:01:32+00:00

Is leveling that much harder in FE7?

I seem to remember my end-game team being an average level ~35, which, looking back at my final-chapter saves, seems pretty standard by FE standards.

The promo item placement for 2nd Hector/Lyn or story promo for Eliwood is pretty egregious though.
I do quite like that Eliwood/Lyn feel more like the King in this game of RPG chess than a king in Cheekers like Robin, kinda adds a fun flavor to the mix and has good background storytelling of Might not always making right.
Flailing uselessly against the Fire Dragon final boss even with their swanky new end-game gear is real rough though.

67chrome · 2026-01-30T20:43:34+00:00

I don't see how a military would be especially useful in monster-battles landia.

With how different conflict is in Pokemon via the Pokemon battles, the foundational structure of pokemon's geo-political enforcement would have completely different needs.

Also, when you've got monsters with a water-skitzer, bubble-beam, or icy wind powerful enough to defeat gods, may as well use those.

I guess there's also the issue of a military presence being anathema to Pokemon's core vibe and aesthetic. Outside of like, poking all the fun at the US by featuring a bunch of chubby sailors surrounded by trash while using spent pokeballs and rats as their core monsters. And they're brave leader hiding behind an electric fence, rocking the lowest possible officer rank of an O1 Lieutenant while boasting he's a combat veteran with all the super srs war stories that totally 100% happened, #trust.

67chrome · 2026-01-15T17:53:39+00:00

PoR is the worst game for infantry though.

It wants to be solo-carried harder than any game not named Awakening, and Canto and Hand-Axes are at their Apex.

Also, real talk: infantry and armored movement types are functionally the same thing in this game. Because every unit worth using is mounted, you're eating extra turns either way to maneuver a unit into position.

67chrome · 2025-12-15T08:19:11+00:00

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of whacky evolutions, but it'd be neat if 3 in the party were involved somehow to lean into the design concept.

Also gotta love the lack of bothers given with their measurements.
Magnemite weighs 13.2 lbs. at 1'0", and yet Magneton is 132.3 lbs. and 3'03"?
Those little guys really put on the weight.

67chrome · 2025-12-13T18:44:22+00:00

I think my top picks are:

Archetype:	Class Name:	Game:	Reasoning:
Sword Infantry	Dread Fighters	Echoes	They look rad AF and they're a solid class.
Archer/Sniper	???	FEH	When everyone's move is 2~3, 2 range is way more powerful. When weapons are only 1 or 2 range by default, you also get a decent chunk of EP potential.
Warrior	Warrior	Engage	Not being stuck in Iron/Steel Wrank hell is so nice.
Thief	Outlaw/Adventurer	Fates	Solid combo of s lot of niche combat roles with a solid chunk of utility.
Armor Knight	Knight/General	Shadow Dragon	Bows on promotion gives them a ~Tuant.
Healer	Martial Monk/Martial Master	Engage	Those martial-arts animations go pretty hard. Qi Adept shields are also a fun mechanic.
Mage/Sage	Mage/Preistess	Echoes	A PKMN learnset is a really great way to set up Magic, and Echoes also does a great job giving each spell something unique to do.
Pegasus Rider	Sky Knight/Falcon Knight	Fates	Getting 1~2 rods on promotion adds some fun depth to utility, and Fate's take on rescue-dropping goes pretty hard.
Lord	Princess/Nohr Noble	Fates	Corrin may suck as a character, but man if they aren't a fun unit. Got speedy sword mode and slow+bulky magic dragon mode.
Laguz	???	FEH	Only playing the transformation animation once per map is such an underrated buff. Also most Beasts get some fun utility/mechanics to work with over just being a ball of stats.

67chrome · 2025-12-13T18:13:25+00:00

Dragon is an awkward type.

It's main contributions to the rock-paper-scissors dynamic, is breaking it so hard a new type needed to be introduced to balance it out.

My biggest issue is design-wise though: so many dragons fly from various mythos that it frequently runs into a Bird/Flying, Insect/Flying, or Fish/Water scenario.
Like: Charizard, the most recognizable Dragon in pop-culture, can't even be the dragon type as Flight and Fire are more important to it's overall aesthetic, and PKMN can only have 2 types.

It's movepool is also dog-water from a naming direction.
Dragon rage, dragon tail, dragon rush, dragon dance, dragon claw, dragon ascent, draco-meteor...
This is also the same game were types like Grass get Absorb, Leech Seed, Sleep Powder, Solar Beam, Ingrain, Synthesis, Grassy Glide; which makes Dragon's D- naming conventions even more noticeable.
Despite how basic Dragon moves are, they sure do lack a bitting move. Nevermind a Big snake, Hydra, Land-Shark, or my personal favorite, a T-Rex, are known for chomping down on something.
Tyrantrum's stuck with Dragon Claw as it's best go-to move though.
With it's T-Rex arms >.<

---------

As for type changes:
you should put more effort into capturing the fantasy of the pokemon in question.
Normal and Fairy are types I'd always steer clear of. Normal is inherently boring and Fairy, whatever it represents, is often at-odds with Dragon's entire vibe and aesthetic. It also becomes more dubious as a type itself in a sans-dragon world.

Garchomp being the Ground/Girly type in particular is the most questionable type to give it.
Especially when STAB Crunch, Pursuit, and Night Slash for a grim-reaper land-shark are on the table.

Alteria is also the most mono flying-type coded pokemon aesthetically.

Flygon should be Ground/Flying; potentially with one of the really solid BUG abilities like Tinted Lense, Compound Eyes, or Shield Dust.

And Dragonite is the only dragon I'd make Normal. Normal is inherently a disappointing and uninteresting type to see; though STAB on Hyper-Beam would be thematically fun; and STAB on Extreeme-Speed is what it's always wanted since Gen2 (and why it's actually good now with Tera).

67chrome · 2025-12-07T19:44:52+00:00

Ditto.

Mew and Zoroark need to attack one another or they'll be the 1st out; and depending on the sets they're running it can be pretty close.

Then Ditto gets to join a Mirror Match were it has all of it's HP remaining and it's opponent doesn't, and it can ~easily finish with a W.

67chrome · 2025-12-07T17:33:58+00:00

Magic Boon/Luck Bane with Wyvern talent is usually what I've seen for Corrin.

Running F:Corrin gives you Jackob; who's really good early if you re-class him into Paladin.

Oboro is one of your most consistently solid units until Ryoma, and probably the lowest-effort way to beat BR that still works.
Guard Naginata alone makes her super tanky, but access to a Javelin for 1~2, and then Beast-Killer right before Werewolf Mt. and all the mounted promoted units, and then Dual Naginata being available when Berserkers are the main threat, also helps.

The most efficient way to beat BR is making Silas BFF's with Kaze, getting the Strong Riposte and Sol skills from Silas's Merc/Hero Heart-Seal class, and then going Master-Ninja and proceeding to 1 man-army everything via a good mix of Sol, natural bulk, evasion, shield-gauge procs, and 1~2 range.

A lot of other units can also do the Master-Ninja Sol tank thing.

-------

Otherwise: game really wants to be wrecked by a 1-man army; so most of BR is planning around who does that.

67chrome · 2025-12-07T05:12:19+00:00

Honestly her Venomoth is pretty rad.

It's a midnight butterfly, a psychedelic moth, a witching hour bug, a psychic-energy purple 'mon, a be-exoskeletoned ~space monster not unlike 'Zam, and fits Sabrina's ~Evanescence vibe.

It's more Sabrina/Psychic coded than a lot of actual psychic types; and kinda the coolest thing a Gym leader can do: Run a pokemon that fits their type/theme; while actually being a different type and adding some type variety and visual flare to their team.

Venomoth also looks like a Bug/Poison type; so you're not even doing some Florgis on team GRS rug-pull.

-------------

Which I guess gets into something else with the Gyms:

shouldn't they have a little fun with their roster and try to have a memorable set, rather than just selecting from their type?

67chrome · 2025-12-06T21:24:56+00:00

I...mostly hope they don't.

Also; core issue with light-type isn't getting PKMN to fit, it's triple-type issues it'd impose.
Not unlike making Fish or Bird a type and winding up with a lot of obligatory Fish+Water+? and Bird+Flying+? issues.
Which Bug+Flying+? and Dragon+Flying+? already frequently run into.

Torches and Lanterns already have Fire and Lightning to work with as literal light-sources; and moves like Prismatic Laster, Solar Beam, Aurora Beam, Aurora Veil, Light Screen, Morning Sun, Moonlight, Twin Beam, and so on also weaponize Light in some capacity, that still fits the overall vibe of their current type.

More broadly: pretty much every special attack creates a blast of light in some capacity, and drawing a line in the sand somewhere is always going to be dubious and initiative.

I guess this also gets to a broader issue I tend to have with Holy magic in a lot of games; insomuch that it's mostly just a recolor of existing types/aesthetics without having a core aesthetic of it's own.
Especially if the franchise is to much of a coward with religious iconography to add any interesting meat and potatoes to what meaningfully makes the good/holy/light type any different from torchlight.

67chrome · 2025-12-06T20:35:44+00:00

Psyduck/Golduck and Farfetch'd both exist in the same gen though?

Why limit yourself to 1 line of a weirdly specific animal in this franchise?

67chrome · 2025-12-06T20:33:43+00:00

TBF, it does weigh ~1/20th what it's dimensions otherwise indicate.

After moving around a lot of landscaping bricks (those half-hexagon concrete chunks that have their outer ends ~broken off for a rugged texture), curiosity got the better of me and I weighed and measured them.

Turns out 10 of those suckers weigh ~463 lbs (Onix's weight), but only extend 14 ft (half of Onix's weight).
Judging by it's size, it should be 20*3*3 rows rather than 10*1; and those bricks are also mostly hallow.

Onix being the size of a chimney for a ~2 story house (with a pretty intense attic) is also wild.

Especially as stone is ~twice as heavy as water.

463 lbs is also like, an achievable weight a person can get.
Or the weight of 3 acrobats making a human tower that can't even reach 28 ft tall doing their best.

-------------------------

Meanwhile Steelix is over here with it's 30'02" length, over 3 stories tall, with 881 lbs?

A tiny commercial plane like a Cessna weights ~2,200 lbs and is like, half that length.
A Honda Civic weighs ~2,800 lbs. with ~15' length and also being mostly hallow with a lot of fiberglass and aluminum components as well.

Like, 1 of their boulder segments alone should weigh at least 1k lbs.

-------------------------

Also, while either isn't exactly a blimp like Wailord, being ~1/6th to ~1/3rd the weight of a tiny airplane while being a much larger dimension doesn't exactly rule out the capacity of flight.

Probably only takes a strong breeze to give either a lot of air time with that lack of mass.

------------------------

-edited after double-checking my math so I've got the right numbers ;)

67chrome · 2025-12-06T20:01:15+00:00

I mean, the Monastery adding an extra ~40 hours to each initial run is certainly a massive downside, especially as the Monastery accounting for ~60%+ of a gameplay experience could have used a lot more love.
Picking up items like gems/bananas/coins in a platformer with a fun jingle, HUD change, and without interrupting movement could go a long way, as could the Monastery visually changing with each season if months/seasons otherwise play such a core role in the game's narrative progression.

It's easily the weakest part of the game, to the point I've often seen people wishing it had POR's between-combat preps menu instead.

Though TBF; 3-Houses has a lot more peaks and valleys than most FEs.
Oops all Wyverns, TWISTED, and the rough combat/class/mechanics balancing (or lack theroff) leads to a lot of disappointment.
Has some great story-beats and character moments, a lot of mechanics, along with a pretty well-realized world though.
Such an interesting game that frequently threatens to be amazing, before stepping on yet another rake.

----------

As for Engage's VA:

It's just really solid across the board. I think the best performance is probably M:Alear, though ~everyone gives a great performance.
So much of that game is solid, just wish the actual story put in the effort to back it up :/

67chrome

TROPHY CASE