MajoraPersona said:
However, the biggest problem I have with your rules happens to be the first one: In order for the beasts to be interesting and believable to kids, they should be grounded in reality.
The first pokemon, #001, is a dinosaur/toad with a symbiotic plant in its back. This plant creates tentacles that resemble vines. This is obviously not your standard for realism, but right off the bat we hit some problems with that idea.
It is a video game. From Japan. About young children. Who travel around the countryside. Befriending wild animals (who apparently all have a decent level of intelligence). And turning them into energy and storing them in hand-held devices, regardless of their initial size. Sir, the moment you brought up realism, you lost.
I'll start here. I also want to say beforehand that I apologize for picking on you specifically. There are a lot of people who share this opinion and this is directed at
all of them, you just happened to be on the last page and I was too lazy to quote all of them.
So what is it about the OPs argument that everyone cocked up on? If I remember, his argument went a little something like this:
It's important for the monsters to be relatable to real animals. Not only can you already sort of know what they do, but you'll also find it easier imagining their movements, attitude's and attacks. There are millions of animals for reference here, so after 6 generations there's still plenty left. Certain animals will work better with certain elements. Obviously birds will be used as inspiration as flying pokemon, fish as water pokemon etc etc.
Is it just me, or does that not make perfect sense? Where did everyone suddenly get this "Pokemon can't be realistic! It has thunder mice and flower dinosaurs and you have no idea what you're talking about!"? He never said that pokemon need to be realistic, he said that the elements from which a pokemon are
based off of need to stem from animals that come from our reality. I agree, this makes sense, especially for a children's game. It's taking something we know and making it fantastic. That's
exactly the sort of stuff psychologists and studies are showing kids need and are attracted to in their youth. God forbid someone got it right and now the company is veering off course from this idea and fans want them to bring it back around. Cause, y'know, the customer is
always wrong!
As for the rest of that argument, with the pokeballs and taming wild animals and such, it's a fantasy story. Some things don't have to be realistic. The issue is that every fantasy story has something that connects it to the real world. In pokemon it's all the animals that resemble those which exist in our world. It binds the world concept and the gamer together and the farther they stray from that, the worse the designs will be.
I'd alos like to comment on everyone's disbelief that Bulbasaur doesn't follow the OPs' rules that pokemon design should follow. I think Graham Stark from the Loading Ready Run group put in best in one of his more recent ENN bits when he said:
Shouldn't every game have had entirely new pokemon? It's not hard to make them up. Take an animal, like a marmat, and an object, like a cup. Marmacup.
It's pokemon creation 101, here. Take an animale, like a dinosaur/toad, and an object, like a flower bulb. Bulbasaur! Is that really so difficult to understand?
As for my question:
Brotherofwill said:
[HEADING=2]What do you think? What makes a good pokemon design? Do you like the new starters? Any favorite/ hated designs?[/HEADING]
This is what I relaly came here for.
I think that you covered most of the points well. I'm pretty sure we can all disagree on elements should match the animal and that was a bit of a poor idea and hopefully you see the folly of that statement yourself. However, there is one rule I would like to add that you started to touch on, but never really got into.
A pokemon's design should represent how it functions as an animal, not as a combatant!
This annoys me to no end! Pokemon, more so now than in the starting generations, leave pokemon with abilities that have no real function in its survival. Something like zubat makes sense; it has no eyes because it uses sonnar to navigate. Something like nosepass makes
no sense! Is there a reason his nose has to be a magnet? Does it eat metal? If it does, bad example, but I think you understand what I'm getting at. More so now than ever, pokemon seem to get random attachments on them simply for the purpose of explaining their movesets rather than thinking about why an animal would need such an evolution to survive. And really, considering this game is
all about evolution to improve, you would think they'd obey the fundamentals of getting rid of extrenious parts to make their function improve rather than do the
exact opposite by adding random thinga-majiggers to every evolution that do
absolutely nothing!
In any case, I think the design team certainly have their work cut out for them.
P.S. Anyone who's confused about the water started for 5th Gen:
it's an otter! That's it. No mystery hybrid animal. It's just an otter with a stubbed tail. Mystery solved.
