Archive
02/11/09 12th Movie Stuff
So Arceus has been officially revealed in CoroCoro and confirmed to be the star of the twelfth Pokémon movie. That sound you just heard was nobody being surprised. Then Serebii reports that CoroCoro also shows Heatran, as well as Chikorita, Cyndaquil and Totodile, on the feature page for the movie.
That sound you just heard was every Pokémon fan in the world jumping up and down and crawling over one another while screaming "OMG GOLD/SILVER REMAKES!"
Contrary to my tendency to be cynical about most of the previous "evidence" for Johto remakes, this little tidbit is quite convincing - why in the world would a movie in the fourth generation heavily feature not just that "notched-ear Pichu", but also the starters for the second generation? Sure, the eighth movie featured Mew, from the first generation, but Mew is a legendary that they had given new, very special significance in that movie; I can hardly imagine the second-generation starters are suddenly in a symbiotic relationship with a mega-organism. Plus that Mew was worth bringing up for promotion again because it was an event legendary in Emerald, while there is no event for getting the Johto starters anywhere in Diamond, Pearl or Platinum. So whyever would they include them? It's difficult not to interpret this as meaning they have something special for the second generation coming up.
12/11/08 Not fifth-generation?
Apparently, the purported fifth-generation Pokémon might just be a Pichu with a weird ear. Although it is beyond me why they would cover a Pichu of all things with a question mark in a trailer.
12/09/08 English Platinum Release Date
Platinum is scheduled to be released in North America on March 22nd, 2009.
With this, it has also been revealed that the new Galactic admin Pluto has been named Charon - most likely to avoid confusion with Disney's Pluto, although what Mickey Mouse names his dog really should not affect what video game villains can be called and particularly not when they stole the name from a planet (okay, no longer a planet, but still), which stole the name from Roman mythology, anyway. For those who don't know, Charon is Pluto's moon, so this does not break the planetary theme; in fact, Charon is so large that it is better to say that it and Pluto orbit one another than that Charon orbits Pluto, so Charon is not that much of a "lesser" name than Pluto, really. And Pluto sounds kind of silly on an elderly mad scientist type, while Charon seems a lot more appropriate (and is more likely to have immediate "evil" connotations in a player's mind than Pluto is, thanks to Disney), so I think it's a fairly good change regardless.
The "Torn World" is now called the Distortion World, which I don't think has quite the same ring to it as "Torn World", but I like it anyway. It is more torn than distorted, in general, but what the heck.
Dialga, Palkia and Giratina as a unit are officially called the "Legendary Titans". Weren't Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres referred to as "titans" in the second movie or something like that? Eh. Not that it's of much importance.
Lastly, the detective Handsome's codename is now Looker, which I don't like nearly as much. D: But that might just be because I found the idea of a detective who calls himself Handsome very amusing to start with and Looker just doesn't have the same air to it. Oh, well.
12/04/08 Fifth Generation?
Been a while.
So. Apparently we possibly perhaps maybe have the first signs of the fifth generation of Pokémon, in a teaser for the twelfth movie. At least the screenshot shown on Serebii seems to be from a Pikachu short or small-cute-Pokémon-centered scene in the movie, and that question mark is definitely not big enough to block out Arceus anyway, which is the only existing Pokémon they'd want to be all mysterious about, even if the whole deal about it being an Electric-type were a red herring like the infamous "the D/P starters will be Dark/Psychic/Fighting" thing. Unless they're just messing with us and really this is a Mareep to advertise their upcoming Gold/Silver remakes! :o ...or not.
It's not at all unlikely for them to bring out the first cute mascoty fifth-generation Pokémon now, anyway, considering how early they were with Munchlax (it appeared in the seventh movie, which was only the second one considered to be an "Advanced Generation" movie; the twelfth is the third considered to be a "Diamond and Pearl" movie). So yeah. Should be interesting to find out about.
09/13/08 Latey McLate is late.
See, this is why The Cave of Dragonflies is not a news site. The Cave of Speculative Theories is a truly marvelous display of my amazing incompetence at news coverage. I should stick to writing elaborate theories about Pokémon genetics and huge sections of trainer data.
Okay, so all joking aside, Platinum is out. Yada yada. PokéBeach has a whole bunch of coverage on the storyline and such if you don't mind being spoiled and can be bothered to read it; Serebii.net has all the Platinum sprites (only one frame, though) in its Pokédex and various information, Serebii and Coronis have a Platinum discoveries thread at Serebii's forums, Bulbapedia has all sorts of information about changes, Marriland has pretty nice video coverage of Platinum's new stuff.
Okay, really. This game seems awesome. Some of my main observations:
- I can't confirm this for certain, but judging from Marriland's videos, scrolling through items in the bag is faster now. Here's something you didn't expect them to fix, eh? But it is obviously awesome.
- And I might be imagining this, but I also think that battling is a little bit faster. As I said, I could be imagining it, but it does look that way in those videos. And that's been a major complaint with D/P.
- One of the new characters is a detective who calls himself... wait for it... 'Handsome'. I like him already.
- You get to battle your rival immediately after you two receive your starter Pokémon again! Ah, the nostalgia. :3 Yeah, I hated how in R/S/E and D/P you don't get to battle your rival until the game has made sure you're higher-leveled. :< I want to have the possibility of losing, damn it.
- The sprites, by the way, vary - some look awesome and some look weird - but a lot of them have an uncanny resemblance to the second-frame D/P sprites, and in fact for many of them it looks like the second-frame Platinum sprite is the first-frame D/P sprite or something close. The sprite the animation actually stops at that is displayed for you the rest of the battle, however, looks different from D/P. Usually.
- Your rival seems to be all over the place now. Which could be a good thing storyline-wise, as he seemed just to pop up randomly in a few places in D/P, but I can also see it being annoying.
- The Sinnoh Pokédex, as you've probably already heard, has 210 Pokémon in it now, mostly the evolution lines of the ones that had new evolutions in the fourth generation, but also Scyther and Scizor, Absol, Houndour and Houndoom, etc.
- It follows that you can get some Pokémon much earlier. Scyther? Route 210! (Freaking YES.) Eevee? You can get it from Bebe in Hearthome City when you first get there.
- It appears that Tangela and Tropius were just Platinum's version exclusives - making this the first Pokémon game where the third version has actual version exclusives that could be obtained in neither of the previous two games.
- Speaking of version exclusives, ouch - two sets of version exclusives from D/P are also unavailable in Platinum. Diamond is thus the only fourth-generation game where you can get Stunky/Skuntank and Murkrow/Honchkrow, and Pearl the only one where you can get Glameow/Purugly and Misdreavus/Mismagius. Of course, this isn't so bad since after all the fourth generation does have the Global Trade Center and plenty of trainers in the game will allow you to see those Pokémon, thus adding them to your Pokédex and allowing you to ask for them in the GTS. The Trapinch line is also unavailable in Platinum, it seems. Aww.
- You get both Dialga and Palkia at Spear Pillar after the Elite Four.
- Rotom has new Formes resembling various household appliances that have better stats than the original and use moves of various types (though they're all Ghost/Electric). They're awesome. And of course, random fans start going on about how "Game Freak are running out of ideas" because of this, even though making Pokémon based on lawnmowers and electric fans is considerably more creative than grabbing random animals. Why is the Pokémon fandom so crazy?
- The order of the Gyms has been changed - Fantina is now the third Gym leader, Maylene fourth and Crasher Wake fifth.
- Speaking of Gyms, a few of them have had their puzzles changed.
- Gym leaders also have neat animations when you face them in battle.
- Some trainers also have Pokéball Seals - that is, you see a fancy little display of flowers or something when their Pokémon come into battle.
- Supposedly, Surfing is no longer agonizingly slow.
- Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres (yes, all three - no starter-dependent crap) roam around Sinnoh after you get the National Pokédex! Now, that's something I didn't expect them to pull.
- You get a Togepi egg from Cynthia instead of a Happiny egg from a random Hiker. And you get a Porygon as a gift too.
- There is an extra Pokétch button to go back by one app! Thank you, Game Freak. We needed that.
- You get the Magmarizer (and then presumably also the Electirizer) as an item lying around instead of having to have a certain version in your GBA slot and hoping to steal one off an Elekid/Magby.
- You now get a house in Resort Area where you can buy freakishly expensive decorations to use there. Sort of like a fancier, private Secret Base. Should be nice when you want to waste some of your 999,999 Pokédollars.
- Swarming and PokéRadar Pokémon seem to be more or less the same as in D/P.
- Ditto now appear in the Trophy Garden, however.
- You can get into Amity Square with more Pokémon. Which reminds me, I've never gone into that place in Diamond, not even once. I need to try it sometime.
- There is a tent in the Day-Care. You can interpret that as shelter from the weather or just a place to, ahem, procreate in private without that creepy little girl staring at you. Take your pick.
- The Underground is not actually Wi-Fi-enabled, contrary to previous rumours.
And so on. Just read all that news coverage. Or not, if you want the game to surprise you. Either way it looks great.