12/14/06 Even Coronis makes mistakes

So, today, on the release date of Pokémon Battle Revolution, various things have happened.

The first is the obvious: Pokémon Battle Revolution was released, and thus we have the official site for the game (as opposed to Game Freak's section about it). Of course it's in Japanese so I don't understand a word of it and can't tell you what's on it, but it has a couple of what I'm fairly sure are new videos, if essentially showing things we've already seen before (the starters attacking). If you're not brave enough to click random Japanese links, they're on this page, and to view them you need to scroll down just past the image of the starters and click one of the headings with the gray background in the gray-outlined box, which will cause a screenshot from the video to appear. To make it actually load and play, you need to click the yellow button below the screenshot. Just in case that wasn't obvious.

The third video, where Enperuto attacks, is especially interesting, because unlike the one we saw before where it was attacking Goukazaru with Surf in a single battle, now we see Surf hitting in a double battle (where, admittedly, it appears that Goukazaru's partner has fainted), and thus get to view its tweaked double battle effect, namely that it hits the partner as well. We see the screen split in two, showing Rentoraa on one side and Goukazaru on the other, and then both are hit by the approaching tidal wave. They even got the orientation right: Surf hits Rentoraa from behind, not from the front. We can also see Rentoraa rendered in the background on Goukazaru's screen as well. Nice.

It doesn't appear to me that there is any other content of interest that we haven't seen before there, though. Oh well.

Now... Coronis of Serebii.net posted today with a little new info and apologies for some mistranslations and misinformation that they found on Japanese websites and took for granted. (See now why I put all the D/P stuff on a special minipage called "The Cave of Speculative Theories" with excessive warnings about the dubious truth value of it all?) The new stuff includes:

In D/P, when two Pokémon with Shadow Tag are facing one another, switching is allowed. Prevents the dreaded Wobbuffet-vs.-Wobbuffet Struggle matches.
The Tower Tycoon is the rival's father - which I think we admittedly all suspected, considering they have nearly identical hair.
The Download ability causes your Attack or Special Attack to increase, whichever the opponent is more vulnerable to. Handy.
Slow Start, Regigigasu's ability, halves Attack and Speed for the first five turns of battle.
Technician, a new ability given to Scyther and some other Pokémon (fwee, Scyther :D), multiplies the power of attacks with a base power lower than 60 by 1.5. This has some interesting connotations that you don't notice at first - for example, this means (well, assuming that 60 base power attacks get the bonus as well) that a Pokémon with Technician can have 90 power Hidden Power if its personality value gives it technical base damage of 60, instead of the conventional 70 which is the normal maximum.
The Dry Skin ability, aside from increasing HP in rain and decreasing it when it's sunny, will also cause the Pokémon to take more damage from Fire attacks and be healed by Water attacks. Is it just me, or do they just LOVE making Fire types pwn Parasect a little more each generation?
Flower Head (which Coronis now appears to translate as Flower Gift), aside from changing the form of the Pokémon, boosts Attack and Special Attack to 1.5 times their normal value during Sunny Day.
Psychic Dream allows the Pokémon to see the opponent's strongest attack at the beginning of battle, in terms of base damage. If more than one attack have the same strongest base damage, a random one will be picked to show you.
Nature Power now generates different and all the more useful attacks: Grass yields Seed Bomb, sand yields Earthquake as before, caves yield Rock Slide as before (I think it was Rock Slide before too, anyway), swamps yield Mud Bomb, water yields Hydro Pump, snow yields Blizzard, ice yields Ice Beam and indoors yields Tri Attack.
The attack Treasure (130 power, 100% accuracy, no negative side effects) does not require you to use up all the PP in your other attacks, but only to use them all at least once. I find this a little funny - makes the attack broken, don't you think? - but ah well.
Feebas is found in a misty lake on Tengan mountain, and like in R/S/E, it appears only in a few tiles - here four. However, and this is the nasty part, the tiles change every day. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
Hurl, the attack where the user throws the item it's holding at the foe, will have various side-effects depending on the item held, like how they flinch with King's Rock, get paralyzed with Light Ball, poisoned with the Poison Orb, burned with the Flame Orb, stats reset with White Herb, etc.

But the things they initially got wrong...

This is a little older, but the "two new natures" infamously reported on every Pokémon site among some of the first D/P info do not actually exist.
Tangela and Tropius, whose locations they had previously reported, are in fact the only Pokémon aside from starter and legendaries that are unobtainable on D/P and therefore need to be traded from the Advance games.
HAHA, I WAS RIGHT ABOUT BAD LUCK. It was a mistranslation; the ability actually is called "Strong Luck" and makes the opponent likelier to receive critical hits, not the user. Absol, Murkrow and Donkarasu are supposed to be bringers of bad luck, not just plain unlucky. Although I don't see why it should be called "Strong Luck", then... o.o Isn't it a matter of making the opponent have bad luck, rather than them having strong luck?
The attack initially reported as being named "Mighty Guard" and raising the user's Defense and Special Defense by one stage is actually named Crescent Dance, is exclusive to Kureseria and when it uses it it will faint but completely heal (as in Pokémon Center heal - PP, HP, status, everything) the Pokémon sent out after it. Don't ask me how those ebil Japanese sites they were taking info from managed to butcher it THAT much, but it's definitely useful, especially if Kureseria has little left anyway...

And finally... although this minipage primarily deals with the games, I feel right to report that the tenth movie has been announced, and its name is "Diaruga vs. Parukia" (well, which I must assume is a title that will be similar to "Mewtwo vs. Mew" for the first movie: I'm guessing it will end up having another title, but with "Diaruga vs. Parukia" being a kind of subtitle). I'm rooting for Diaruga. :D Although knowing Pokémon movies, time and space will just be warped and distorted because of the battle, but Ash will somehow stop the fight and make Diaruga and Parukia go back to sleep.

Battle Revolution news coming as soon as somebody who has the game puts something up. <_<

EDIT: TotalPokémon has the tenth movie trailer - I was having difficulties viewing it on the official movie site, but it works fine there. Funnily enough, the trailer shows Diaruga and Parukia battling in what looks like definite 3D to me... o.o Going CGI with the movies, are you, or is this just because this is a teaser video?

EDIT2: Okay, it looks like pokemon.co.jp's Battle Revolution site has a bunch of new videos as well. If nothing is showing in the video player, just right-click it and select Play. I think only the bottom two videos are old... Admittedly the second one, which has Ho-oh and Lugia, worries me a little, because I'm getting the feeling they're recycled Stadium 2 models... v.v

Comments

(Comments are closed.)

Scaff
Hmm... Sounds good. I'm glad that some of the abilities have been cleared up. I'm more excited for PBR than D/P though. Half the reason for that is the fact that I don't have a DS though, heh, heh. ^^;

Malachite Treecko
I love the new abilities now. DP is the generation when most Pokemon are useful, it seems. And Strong Luck is good too.... Yay. [Rambling]Hurl also seems like an very strategy-based attack. It will probably have a really good future, and in competitive play Hurlers are as usual as Sweepers and Tanks...[/Rambling]

PichuPi
Absol is now on my team again. =D

Tower Tycoon or Salon Maiden? ?_?

If they meant Salon Maiden, then Anabel is a DAD. O.o
Besides, the Tower Tycoon is sort of nonexistant! Or do they mean in D/P/Battle Revolution? @_@

lugiacuno
i watched both without problems,and (the trailers) are both the same.

Butterfree (Website)
Umm, huh? Salon Maiden? o_O Of course it's D/P; what else would it be? There is a Battle Tower, led by a guy called the "Tower Tycoon", and he has hair that looks just like the D/P rival's.

Happypants3
XD at the name 'Strong Luck.' Thankfully, they don't normally use direct Japanese translations for the English games. =D

Also, it seems PBR's gonna be a real awesome game! Detail like that's the result of either painstakingly sharpened coding or a good console. And, of course, we know which one that is. XD

Negrek (Website)
Hah, I was so right about "bad luck." I knew they wouldn't honestly make something that stupid... (although I can't believe it took that long for people to figure it out).

Technician sounds like a cool ability. If it works on 60-power moves and you have one with STAB, then each of them would effectively have 135 base power, which is pretty nifty.

PBR looks lovely thus far. I can't wait until it comes out in English.

PichuPi
Did you notice the Diamond and Pearl pages on Pokemon.com? They didn't rename Futaba Town yet. XD

Grumpig
Now let's just hope Delcatty's new ability (Normal Skin) was mistranslated as well [/wishful thinking]

Floop
Butterfree, Colosseum was reusing Stadium 1 models for some Pokemon. Well, technically Stadium 2 models, but Stadium 2 used Stadium 1 models ANYWAY for the old Pokemon....

I've never played XD but presumably they still used most of the models they used in Colosseum.

It follows that they'd keep reusing some of the models. --;

Catti
A little theory about the 10th movie. When space and time warp, everything goes all CG because, well, space and time are warped. Sounds kind of stupid to me, but that's my ten cents.

SS
And I thought Coronis knew everything...

SS
"Going CGI with the movies, are you, or is this just because this is a teaser video?"

Actually, all the commercials for Pokemon games in the UK are 3D.