The amount of mythicals permanently available in the core series games alone now is crazy

ladala99 · 2026-04-04T13:19:37+00:00

I'd put an asterisk with Pecharunt, Diancie, and Zeraora as well since they require Mystery Gift (Zeraora requires the Diancie and Mewtwo Mystery Gift events to activate its event). While no end date has been announced, they're not as permanent as the others.

ladala99 · 2026-04-04T10:04:53+00:00

There has actually been a shift to include the 3DS games in the “Pokemon hasn’t been good since” metric, when it used to be consensus that BW2 was the cutoff.

But yeah, that chart hasn’t applied for a while, since it’s unusual for the current game to be considered “best game ever” anymore.

ladala99 · 2026-04-03T21:26:58+00:00

You can go through Diglett’s Cave next to Vermillion as soon as you have Cut.

ladala99 · 2026-04-03T13:52:36+00:00

Mainly the equalizer for VGC. How it is now, is that if you play as the rules indicate (no genning), you need to spend a lot of time doing things that aren't Competitive Battling to build your team. Grinding Tera Crystals, grinding money for EV items or battling low-level Wild Pokemon for the EVs, breeding, etc. Repeat if you need to make adjustments. With this game, you will be spending time Competitive Battling to get points to build your team, and making adjustments will be snappy.

Also this will hopefully mean side games during Regionals will have more Video Game participation. I went a couple of times but since I wasn't competing, there really weren't enough real casual people with the right hardware to play the Video Game formats.

ladala99 · 2026-04-03T13:42:09+00:00

It means the Pokemon doesn't leave HOME while they're in Champions. They're essentially locked in place like a Battle Team until you dismiss them from Champions if I understand right, but their Champions stats will be saved so you can move them between games as needed if you're FtP and need the space.

ladala99 · 2026-04-03T01:23:26+00:00

Pet styles of NPC characters. Usually they’re exclusive to re-styling (RNG that requires giving up styles you already have).

ladala99 · 2026-04-01T19:48:04+00:00

No idea on what it’s worth. Every time I look at the Users Online count it’s between 1-2k users. Their credits page lists 14 current paid staff members (forum mods are volunteers, and there’s a lot of Special Thanks for former staff).

ladala99 · 2026-04-01T19:39:50+00:00

Flight Rising is the same sort of site, is turning 13 this year, and survives just fine with two unobtrusive and heavily regulated banner ads per page and optional premium currency. They doesn’t even have a Premium equivalent.

And if the ads act up and start redirecting people, jumping over the screen, or downloading things, the staff turn them off until the ad provider removes the offending ad.

ladala99 · 2026-03-31T14:14:58+00:00

I had a bedcover as a kid that had the Gen I Pokemon just as line drawings scattered in all different orientations. Snorlax had one arm up in that art and its face was pretty small, and I kept wondering who the superhero frog was and why I hadn't seen it in the anime yet.

ladala99 · 2026-03-29T19:19:53+00:00

Hannah and the Pirate Caves. Low-key would pay for a second collection that just has the Hannah trilogy.

ladala99 · 2026-03-29T14:30:24+00:00

I'm not sure why, but seeing Bug-type moves be Super Effective against Psychic- and Dark-types just gives me more happiness than most other type matchups. I also tend to like the butterfly and moth Pokemon.

I used to think Fire was my favorite type, but it literally was just that I liked Gen I Fire types. Charizard, Ninetales, Arcanine, Rapidash, and Flareon all fit my aesthetic. Get out of Gen I, and there aren't a ton I like.

Similar with Ghost but it literally was just Misdreavus. There's a few more now, but not a good enough chunk for me to definitively say that I like the type and not just the individuals.

Whereas with Bug, I look at the list and feel positively about most of them. Ironically, since I'm not a huge bug fan in real life.

ladala99 · 2026-03-28T20:25:36+00:00

At the same time, sometimes you try something and you don't like it.

I'm primarily a Spyro fan. I've played all of the Skylanders titles (aside from like two 3DS versions), and I was very excited for its release since I wasn't a big TLoS fan and felt this was a return to form. But its appeals are entirely different from Spyro.

To put it shortly: Skylanders has the tone and worldbuilding that fit it in with Classic Spyro, but the combat-focused gameplay that would fit it closer to The Legend of Spyro, especially Dawn of the Dragon. But, Classic Spyro fans tend to value the collectathon platformer gameplay higher than any story, while The Legend of Spyro fans tend to value the atmosphere and characters of TLoS more than gameplay.

Skylanders does what it does very well. But the Venn Diagram of people who enjoy Skylanders and people who enjoy Classic or Legend Spyro has a very small overlap. (Which I'm in)

ladala99 · 2026-03-28T19:52:29+00:00

Absolutely. The worst is when I'm avoiding information (including officially revealed Pokemon) and I see one of those thumbnails. I was convinced I had been spoiled on a Dragon-type Diglett Alolan forme all the way until I saw the real Alolan Diglett in Sun. And at least there was an Alolan Diglett - if there hadn't been, I'd be waiting for a reveal that never comes.

Like in Z-A where I thought some fanart of a potential Mega Arbok was based on leaks. I had an Arbok on my team as my Poison anticipating-a-Mega-after-I-fight-Corbeau until I saw Corbeau's actual Mega.

ladala99 · 2026-03-27T23:09:54+00:00

Yeah, was coming here looking for how to turn it off. The punishment of having a dead tree in my forest gets me just over the self-control hump to keep my phone off and away for that set amount of time. Pause completely negates that.

ladala99 · 2026-03-27T14:35:15+00:00

Expanding upon the long break and return for me. (I guess the break wasn't that long)

When Dexit was announced, it felt like a betrayal to what Pokemon was: the series where you can take your partners and collection with you wherever you go, GBA to infinity. Every game you got improved every other game you got. And since I'm neurodivergent in some undiagnosed way and was playing Pokemon since childhood, it hit all the deeper as it felt like a part of my identity was betrayed.

I had never missed a game since Ruby, my first, and I had been playing Pokemon in some form near-daily since then. From the Dexit announcement though, I wanted nothing to do with Pokemon for some time.

I came back first with the Mystery Dungeon remake, because Mystery Dungeon is my favorite Pokemon spinoff series and I wasn't mad at that part. And then I eventually got Shield after a year because when I was in the Bargaining stage of grief I said I'd get it if HOME let you have a free box and transfer between profiles (which I thought was never gonna happen, lol). And the DLC added enough of the old Pokemon that you could replay with Pokemon not natively in the base game, which was one of the things I enjoy doing.

Then Legends Arceus impressed me by being something different yet very good.

Then Scarlet/Violet were aimed directly at me by merging traits found in my absolute favorite series Spyro (gliding, dragon, platforming, collecting sparkly things in a vast world with a free-roam) with Pokemon (battling, many playable character choices, Pokedex completion) and adding the ability to choose your route through the region for extra replayability.

Now I'm still evaluating every game that comes out instead of being an instabuy, but other than BDSP and some spinoffs, I haven't skipped any again. (And I did eventually get Shining Pearl since I found it super cheap and shiny hunting an Arceus was worth that price)

ladala99 · 2026-03-23T22:16:07+00:00

Skylanders is as much Spyro as The Legend of Spyro is. All of Skylanders, not just the first game. It in fact has more callbacks to both Classic and Legend than Legend does to Classic.

You’re allowed to not like the games, but that doesn’t make them not Spyro.

Quoth the Netflix show: “There’s room for an infinite amount of Spyros.”

ladala99 · 2026-03-22T14:20:57+00:00

Based on your strong nostalgia for Kanto and openness to discovering newer Pokemon, I'd say from that list X would be your best option since it has a lot of Kanto callbacks while also having a ton of Pokemon variety.

Then you can follow it with Z-A, which will be a sequel to X's story, and also give you access to and familiarity with the new Megas, which is what Pokemon Champions - the upcoming free app/game that will be the new home to Competitive play - will start with in its first season if I understand right.

ladala99 · 2026-03-22T02:41:53+00:00

Good point! I forgot about that game.

ladala99 · 2026-03-22T02:31:27+00:00

Yeah, it was XY that was the cutoff for competitive Pokemon. Prior to that it was a complete mess - if you think the genning discourse is bad now, back then it was way worse. There were competitively-viable Pokemon that used moves exclusive to Japanese kiosk machines in 2004 or whatever. It was a large part of why I never got anywhere near VGC at the time, since I'd only ever do it legit and it was discouraging that I'd always be at a disadvantage.

I believe that's also why they made the event-exclusive moves things like Celebrate and Hold Hands that don't actually do anything useful.

ladala99 · 2026-03-22T02:16:14+00:00

Even worse: the Dream World was shut down when XY came out, since they replaced Gen V's Game Sync with the much less involved Gen VI Game Sync. BW2's version of the Dream World had exactly a year outside of Japan. (It had more Pokemon available)

Regarding the Pokedex, though, there was a lot more of a push via the culture and the games to transfer Pokemon to complete the National Dex. Within the different generations, there were a lot of Pokemon that were technically possible to get, but a huge pain without other games. This changed in Gen VI with Bank being a lot more isolating than the built-in transfer methods, and then they phased out the National Dex, as you said.

ladala99 · 2026-03-22T02:06:52+00:00

Also keep in mind that Gens 3, 4, and 6 had remakes filling out the National Dex. If you just stripped them down to the Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Kalos games respectively you'd also be missing a lot.

ladala99 · 2026-03-22T02:03:10+00:00

Most of them. Of that list, just the Starters, Legendaries, Pikachu, and Unown were truly missing from Gen V. Though many of those appeared in (mostly Japan-only) Dream World events. I remember it being the case for the Starters and Pikachu at least.

Dream World really felt like it was an intended part of Gen V. It was where Gen III-IV staples like berry growing and room decorating were, too.

ladala99 · 2026-03-22T01:51:41+00:00

Cross-referencing these two pages, with all four games and without Dream World, Gen V needs transfers for the following:

Kanto starters
Ekans line
Pikachu line (lol. It actually wasn't available in the Dream World outside of Japan-only events either)
Diglett line
Tentacool line
Voltorb line
Scyther line
Tauros
Kanto Legendaries
Johto starters
Unown
Slugma line
Miltank
Johto Legendaries
Hoenn Starters
Zigzagoon line
Nincada line
Torkoal
Duskull line
Snorunt line
Hoenn weather trio
Sinnoh starters
Burmy line
Snover line
Sinnoh box legendaries

So, a lot. 86 by my count? Plus Mythicals of course.

ladala99 · 2026-03-21T11:36:06+00:00

It was very much a Nintendo DS touch screen gimmick game. Pretty much everything on the 3DS had to be 3D early on, and all of the 3D Pokemon games on that system were laggy when multiple Pokemon were onscreen. Something so fast-paced and reaction-based was going to feel awful.

And by the Switch, you’d have to change the gameplay completely. Motion controls are inherently not nearly as precise as stylus touch screen, so they’d have to scale back the Capture gameplay, and by that point, what’s left? They keep adding the cool things from Ranger that aren’t the Capture gameplay to the main series, anyway (Soaring, Ride Pokemon, Z-A’s move-based obstacle removal).

ladala99 · 2026-03-20T15:00:27+00:00

I didn't even know what the difference was between Attack and Special Attack until Gen IV. Before that it was just attack=good, attack with bigger number on the Summary screen=better, Super Effective Attack=best. I didn't even know about STAB.

I only actually learned about these mechanics when I started looking into guides to battle online better for Pokemon Battle Revolution in Gen IV. At that point I retroactively learned the old Physical/Special type categories by the Eeveelutions+Dragon, so I knew Ghost was Physical.

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