Archive
10/04/06 Gender Differences
So, PoKéMoN SaFaRi (the site is in Spanish, sorry) apparently has some bad rips of the Diamond/Pearl sprites. Some of them work fine, but others are glitchy as heck. Eevee and the guys are still going to rip them properly, by the way.
The first link has the male sprites and the second has the female sprites. Yup, here they are, all the gender differences in the game...
And Game Freak did a great job. Honestly, I was expecting something stereotypical. I think we were all certain that the first Pokémon gender differences would be exploited on would be the Ralts and Machop family. None of them has been touched. The males look identical to the females. No breasts and bras on Machoke, not even a shorter dress on male Gardevoir. They just went, "Hey, people, they're not human and this is what they look like, so deal with it. In your face," on us. Pure brilliance.
What are the gender differences then? Not all Pokémon at all have any - in fact, only a few do. And the differences are little, subtle things, mostly consisting of larger body parts in appropriate places for the Pokémon's real-life counterparts - tiny changes in patterns, females with smaller horns, female bugs with a larger abdomen - minor things like Hypno's neck fuzz being thicker and Kadabra's mustache shorter (not removed, note that) on females, etc., the final confirmation that Ash's Pikachu is male, and then a comical developer joke where female Wobbuffet has lipstick (which I really doubt anybody will take seriously). Not once, disregarding Wobbuffet of course, has a "girly" Pokémon been made to look more "boyish" when it's male or a "macho" Pokémon changed to be "feminine" when female.
I love Game Freak.
10/03/06 Aruseusu and Daakurai
I could technically have commented on this yesterday, but I was too busy whining about continuity to care.
If you click the button for the Pokémon spoiler on Serebii.net's index page, it will uncover five new Pokémon. Two are just the Nosepass and Mangeton evolutions (both of which keep continuity, by the way, as they evolve when levelled up at specific locations in Shinou), one is Sheimi which is the "other" Mew/Celebi/Jirachi of D/P with Manaphy from the looks of it, and then there are the two this article concerns: Aruseusu and Daakurai.
Hehehe, they're pretty unique, to say the least. Without knowing anything about what Japanese words might be derived from, Aruseusu's name makes me think of Zeus, the chief god of Greek mythology, and also of "Artheus" or "Altheus", then hinting at the Greek word theo, meaning God, but that may just be me. In any case, its Pokédex entry supposedly confirms its identity as a god Pokémon which created the world...
Getting a little religious here, aren't we? I sense some fundamentalist Christians taking this as a challenge on their God... Of course, they may never learn about its existence, and their lenses are not exactly turned on Pokémon anymore since it's not as popular as it once was, but this is a bit of a dangerous game, né? It doesn't help that Daakurai has similar implications of being a "devil" Pokémon, given its type, the "Daaku" part of its name being the Japanese way to write "Dark", its colors being purplish-black and red and the overall form looking ghostly/devilish. (As a neat little bit, Daakurai is quite a bit less powerful than Aruseusu - I guess good really does prevail over evil.)
Heh, this will get interesting.
As a matter of fact, Eevee tells me the sprites are nearly ripped, so watch this space today.
10/02/06 Continuity Broken
v.v How typical is it that as soon as I've announced the completely unbroken continuity of evolutions in D/P, they go break it? I'm sure they did it just to spite me... <_<
Anyway, the basic story is that Coronis revealed a few new evolution methods (that post and a couple of successive ones). It basically says that:
- Tangela evolves into Moshanbo, Yanma into Megayanma and Piloswine into Manmuu by levelling up while they know Ancientpower. No problem there, as none of them was capable of learning the move until in Diamond and Pearl.
- Aipom evolves into Eteboosu by levelling up while it knows Double Attack, which is a new move and thus obviously not a problem.
- Mime Jr. and Bonsly evolve into Mr. Mime and Sudowoodo, respectively, by levelling up while they know Mimic. While Mimic is an old attack, Mime Jr. and Bonsly obviously didn't exist before anyway, so you wouldn't land in the situation of fulfilling the requirement yet not evolving.
- Tamanta evolves into Mantine by levelling up while you have a Remoraid in your party. Of course, as with Bonsly and Mime Jr., Tamanta didn't exist in the previous games so no problem there.
- Dusclops evolves into Yonowaaru if traded while holding a Spirit World Cloth, a new item.
- Porygon2 evolves into PorygonZ if traded while holding an Eerie Patch, which is also a new item. Looks like some company decided to make an evil patch for the Porygon2 program. o.o
- But, the subject of this article, Lickitung evolves into Beroberuto by levelling up while it knows Rollout and - while it's very close - Lickitung could learn Rollout by move tutor in Emerald.
Gah, so very, very close. x.x I don't know if they overlooked that fact, or if they just thought "Oh, well, we can break it once." Of course, you can explain it by saying that the Pokémon must have learned the move on its own accord to be able to evolve. 8)
EDIT: Okay, Iveechan got me to check another source and my initial suspicion that Piloswine could learn Ancientpower by breeding turned out to be true. That breaks the continuity as well, then, and kind of wrecks the "learning on its own accord" theory as well. v.v Ooh, hey, I know. The ability to use those moves does not actually evolve the Pokémon, but gives them the physical ability to, and once they have this physical ability, they still need to be aware that they are capable of evolving, which only happened now with some more research. :O Mwahahaha. I can think of logical explanations for anything that does not make sense. Fear me.
10/01/06 D/P Developments
The latest developments in Diamond and Pearl info are, to say the least, very interesting.
Serebii.net has put up a Pokétch section. The first thing I think of when I see it is "Wow, Game Freak really understand us fans." Like one clock format better than the other? You can switch. Need to calculate damage, EVs, etc.? Use the calculator. Just bored? Draw on the screen. Hatching an egg? The walking meter counts your steps. Forgotten where you planted your berries? The Berry Map will show you. Don't want to keep checking the Day Care Center? Use the breeder lookup. Need to count the number of Pokémon you've defeated for EVs? The counter will do it for you. Tend to forget which town has the Move Deleter? Mark him on the Shinou Map. Indecisive? Flip a virtual coin. Too lazy to learn the types or look it up? The type chart does it for you. Seriously, that's 90% of the technical problems we've had to solve manually since Pokémon started, all solved cleanly and brilliantly. I will always love them for that.
The second interesting development is the revelation of some evolutionary methods for old Pokémon (that post and some below it), and yet again I can laugh and say "I told you so" - every single one of them evolves or is bred with a method that did not exist in the older games, preserving the continuity. Let's have a quick overview of them:
- The Grass Eevee evolution, Riifia, and the Ice Eevee evolution, Gureishia, both evolve from Eevee by being leveled up at a certain location in Shinou.
- Sneasel evolves into Weavile when levelling up at night and holding a Sharp Claw, a new item. The really funny thing is that I had previously created an item by that name for my guide to making fake Pokémon which would evolve a Pokémon if it held it and grew a level (although admittedly the final condition was being happy enough rather than the time of day, for the obvious reason that there was no day and night in R/S):
I had this funny idea about making Quick Claw-ripoffs which would evolve Malkie based on the stat that each evolution focuses on the most. ... There could maybe be some kind of a "Sharp Claw" or something like that which increases your critical hit ratio with physical attacks.
In my version, as you can see, the Sharp Claw increased the critical hit ratio with physical attacks; I don't know what it does in Diamond and Pearl, but if it raises critical hit ratio or makes physical attacks stronger, I'll laugh. - Gligar evolves into Guraion if levelled up at night while holding a Sharp Fang, which looks like something parallel to Sneasel's evolution. Again, the Sharp Fang is a new item.
- Pinpuku evolves into Chansey by levelling up while holding a Round Stone, yet again a new item.
- Rhydon evolves into Dosaidon by being traded while holding a Protector, which is a new item.
- Mime Jr., Bonsly, Subomi, Pinpuku, Munchlax, Tamanta and Riishan are all bred from their respective evolutions while one of the parents is holding one of seven new incenses.
- Lastly, Erureido, the male Kirlia evolution, and Yukimenoko, the female Snorunt evolution, do in fact not make all male Gardevoir and female Glalie break continuity - they do not only have to be the correct gender, but also need to have an Awaken Stone, which is of course a new item, used on them.
I've always argued that Game Freak do not break continuity no matter how many evolutions and pre-evolutions they add. Some people still seem to argue "Who cares about continuity?", but honestly, if this isn't proof I don't know what is. This is starting to sound like denial.
The third thing is the discovery of Fione, the supposed Manaphy pre-evolution, being the result of breeding Manaphy, but nonetheless not evolving into Manaphy. This is quite a twist, as you can imagine - never before, and very sensibly not, have a Pokémon's offspring all been creatures incapable of evolving into the parent. Fione is just a weaker version of Manaphy. All in all this leads me to believe that Fione is in fact a species, while Manaphy is one special individual of this species - their king or prince, so to speak, hence Manaphy being the 'Prince of the Sea' - who has additional abilities which are not genetic and thus do not appear in Manaphy's offspring.
Of course, that is only my theory. People in Serebii's discovery discussion thread have suggested that Manaphy is the original and Fione is an inferior 'version' of it:
Fione is the most interesting thing I have ever seen... It is bred by Manafi, yet cannot become Manafi.. guess it's gamefreaks way of saying 'You try and breed a legendary, we go deformed on ya *****!'
I remember someone in this thread or in the new pokemon thread that breeding Manaphy with other pokemon resulted in an "impure-blooded" MAnaphy. He was right!
maybe its a deformed version of manafi
It's the poor man's Manaphy, lol.
Fione. A genius Pokemon. Manafi is a one-of-a-kind Pokemon, a pure blood. Now, if you muddle the blood, it will be watered down. Manafi was never ment to be bred. But, if you defy the laws of nature, and do breed one, it creates an anomaly. Something that was never ment to exist.
Definitely very curious. I'll keep you up-to-date.
10/01/06 Comments System
Not an actual article, but um, yeah, there's a comments system now that I put together. o.o Feel free to test by adding some comments to this one. Also, as you'll notice when you click the "Comments" link below here (or the article title, for that matter), you can now link to one single article and its comments if you feel like it. Fwee.