The Room

[balladbird]

In other news, we have always been at war with Team Flare.

There is no war with team flare.

We are winning the war with team flare.

both of these facts are true.

Cognitive dissonance does not exist.



I admit, the comic was worth a chuckle from me, since I come from where they're coming from. I'm enjoying playing Y (my first pokemon game since Blue) but I'm disheartened by how many of the pokemon i've encountered that look like earlier pokemon in paper thin disguises. feels like the roster's a little inflated.

..Also glad I'm not the only person who came into this thread expecting a discussion on Tommy Wiseau.

 

[Mr.Squishy]

Uh, was this humor? No seriously? Am I meant to openly laugh at this? Or chuckle a little bit and say "that's was kinda clever" or what? I know quality control on the Internet is pretty much non-existant but come on. Really?

Those are my thoughts each and every time I read a Critical Miss strip. I remember enjoying some early strips, but in general, reading this strip is [insert overused trainwreck metaphor]. Any semblance of a storyline seems to have vanished entirely, and the jokes fail to tickle my funny bone. I would say the art isn't bad, but the style just looks...wrong to me.
Critical Miss is the 'The Room' of webcomics.

 

[Ocelano]

SNIP
Yeah. (Though it may be worth noting that Digimon has had 1100+ for years.)

Digimon is however very guilty of merely pallette swapping a critter and calling him a brand new dude Pokemonb at least uses different designs for its generic pidgeons

 

[GodzillaGuy92]

Battling is peace.
Releasing is slavery.
Pokemania is strength.

Seriously though, that comic made my whole day.

 

[The_Echo]

SNIP
Yeah. (Though it may be worth noting that Digimon has had 1100+ for years.)

Digimon is however very guilty of merely pallette swapping a critter and calling him a brand new dude Pokemonb at least uses different designs for its generic pidgeons

Yeah, there are some recolors in Digimon species.

But as far as I've seen, it's a pretty significant minority.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Hah! I get the reference? Still, seven hundred and eighty-one? Yikes! Gotta catch 'em all indeed...

This is starting to get sinister.

I think we need a Planet of the Apes story arc next. Where the Pokemon rise up and learn to talk, and the humans are forced to battle each other instead.

I second that notion!

 

[scw55]

Yeah, catching them all is now more of a burden than an achievement.

Also, is anyone else confused on how Fairy types are supposedly "newly discovered" Pokemon? What, did the natives of Kalo's just not see them?

My issue are the Pokemon that are now Fairy type.

Fairies are immune to dragon and weak to poison etc... How did my little Cleff not get unaffected by Outrage last generation? Silly game mechanics affecting the 'logic' of the Pokeverse.

 

[Skeleon]

Oh god, I love this one. It's beautiful.

 

[ZexionSephiroth]

The way I remember the Pokerap actually admits there may be more than 150... So it was never really canon even then that 150 was the limit.

Because how I remember it was something like this:

"Cause there's One Hundred and fifty, And MORE TO SEE."

I took that to mean that... Yep... There's more than that, we just haven't discovered the little critters yet.

...

And as for the Digimon discussion, I still like Digimon, and the series still is good... But it wasn't in the sense of it being higher entertainment.

In no Particular order... My opinion of each Season.

Season Three was the most the most Cereberal. Season One was the most Cohesive. Season Two was... Okay I guess... Season Four is the one I remember as "The one where the Good Guys don't win until everything is FUBAR". Season Five was were they started appealing to the Awesome Factor BY HAVING A HUMAN GUY CONSTANTLY PUNCHING MONSTERS IN THE FACE! And Season Six was an Excercise in Serial Escalation with a side of Nostalgia Panda Rings.

And The Hunters Arc?

It was... A Mess... An Enjoyable mess, like watching a Car Crash where everyone survives just because one of them is too Brave and Stupid to Die. And Emerging from the wreckage this boy who may as well be Ash Ketcham but isn't Swears to somehow Save the World by becoming the best Monster Hunter Ever and then he spontaneously bursts into flames.

...It pays not to think of the Hunters Arc as a Digimon Season... And to think of it more as what it would be like if Gurren Lagann was combined with Pokemon.

...


And Back to Pokemon... I always kind of assume that the Pokedex not being Updated for the New Region yet has Something to do with each new Region only just growing to the level of Human Development as the last. And Before that point, they haven't compiled each Region's Findings with the previous.

For example... Going from Kanto to Johto, the Pokedex is still brand new, and is a Product of Kanto, and Johto hasn't started cataloging Pokemon since they only just got the device they need to do so: A Pokedex Shipped in from Kanto. Which they didn't yet have the Know how to Make themselves from Scratch... And So they add in a new memory pack, and hope like heck that their Haphasard Solution will work, send out a few Teens, and Bring the Results back to the Lab, then ship the findings back to Kanto Somehow.

Onward to Hoenn, a few years later Kanto makes contact with them, a few Skips over to such a Degree that Kanto may not have even explored that far themselves before then, and they tell them their plan of Cataloging Pokemon. Hoenn has better know how than Johto, so they Cobble Together their own Pokedex, the first "Regional Dex", since they don't want to bother waiting for a shipment from Kanto. And once done, they contact Kanto, send over the findings, and after a bit of sifting, they add the findings together and call it the "National Dex".

...We Can Assume a similar story happens with Sinnoh...

Unova on the other hand may have Come up with the idea of a Pokedex Independently, having come up with it several years after Kanto did, and the National Dex came to them when they find out its already out there by word of Intrepid Explorers who find their land.

...And Finally Kalos... Who Just couldn't Get their stuff together in one Unified Pokedex, having had a freaking awesome one for ages but had Three Competing Indexes and no centralized research to list them on a single system. And it only being when Kanto makes contact that they finally decide on a unified order for their unique pokemon.

So the basic narrative of Pokemon's Human Civilization can be interpreted as people sitting their asses down in one spot and making huge assets of technology but only recently has the idea of "Exploration" even occurred to them, to the point they may have forgotten there were other civilizations out there with technology as good as theirs, that they just weren't able to communicate with. After all... The end of their maps may as well say "Out there be Dragons" and it being just a simple fact that means "There are literally Dragons over here, probably a Dragonite to be precise, they don't like you going that way, Please turn back. You have nice and comfortable Heating in you small island that you are holed up in."

...Damn... Should have started with that... Oh well.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Seriously? Over 700?

Man, am I ever glad I stopped collecting the cards. That would just be...gah...so many...too many...

And here I am, proud of having legitimately caught all 151.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Wait... really?

I haven't payed attention since Red/Blue. Are there seriously 700+ of the little bastards running around now?

My thoughts exactly, and that alone is enough to make me keep my distance. Then there is the possibility of powercreep with all these new pokemon. Don't know how bad it is or if it's even a problem, but I don't want to find out.

Not every Pokemon is in each new installment... they're crazy, not stupid. I believe X and Y only has 200 or so total?

 

[Saltyk]

This does pose a question. Do the Pokemon regions not have good communication? Did the original region only count the ones that were in that region? Is this a case of Columbus "discovering" new continents? Do the Pokeleaders intentionally keep their people ignorant? What aren't they telling us?

We've always been at war with Team Plasma. They have always been our enemy. Team Rocket has always been aiding us in our battle against team Plasma...

Wait... really?

I haven't payed attention since Red/Blue. Are there seriously 700+ of the little bastards running around now?

My thoughts exactly, and that alone is enough to make me keep my distance. Then there is the possibility of powercreep with all these new pokemon. Don't know how bad it is or if it's even a problem, but I don't want to find out.

I do admire pokemon from a marketing perspective, though. Everything in it is designed to sell. The roundness of Pikachu to attract little kids (boys and girls). The fact that the pokemon talk with their names to help kids remember their names. It has to be one of the most clever marketing schemes of all time. Gotta catch'em all, after all.

That's enough to make you keep your distance. But...

Powercreep is actually not a problem. There are less things being banned from tournament play with each new generation (since DPPt, anyway). The meta game gets mixed up a bit (BW introduced some highly aggressive play that actually worked in the meta, and XY introduced the fairy type, a new way to counter dark, dragon, and fighting types, some of the most obnoxious in tourney play), but no real power creep. What mostly happens is the introduction of new type combinations and movesets, which simply shifts the meta, no powercreep.

This is enough to make me keep my distance. There's a Pokemon META GAME! Oh, God. I hate the whole Meta Game bull shit. It's like the tiers in fighting games. It is incredibly boring playing against the same exact strategy time and again. I remember going to Regional tournaments to play cards (not as impressive as it sounds, you just had to walk in and pay an entry fee) and the whole Meta Game got so bad, I could predict my opponent's entire deck based on their first cards played. That is not fun, people!

 

[Zombie_Fish]

This should've totally been called 'Room 151'.

 

[ZexionSephiroth]

This does pose a question. Do the Pokemon regions not have good communication? Did the original region only count the ones that were in that region? Is this a case of Columbus "discovering" new continents?

As I see it... All of the Above... Depending on specific circumstances for specific regions.

For Unova and Kalos, its the Columbus Case, but instead of Columbus finding a horribly under powered level of tech for a nation, this would be him finding a fully developed Society of 31st Century tech. And instead of what's holding back discovery being a fear of things that turn out not to be real so were never a threat (such as the edge of the earth) there turn out to be a real danger of your vehicle of exploration being set on fire by a passing creature you've never seen before.

The Later is basically the reason for the former. Both Societies had ages to develop Technology on their own in isolation via it being dangerous to venture forth, so by the time they get there 10,000 years of civilization has passed independently in both locations, enough time to develop who knows how great a level of Technology, so they find themselves both on High Tech Ground.

Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh have Poor Communication, with Kanto being the Inventors of the Pokedex as they know it so they counted up the Pokemon in their region first.

Powercreep is actually not a problem. There are less things being banned from tournament play with each new generation (since DPPt, anyway). The meta game gets mixed up a bit (BW introduced some highly aggressive play that actually worked in the meta, and XY introduced the fairy type, a new way to counter dark, dragon, and fighting types, some of the most obnoxious in tourney play), but no real power creep. What mostly happens is the introduction of new type combinations and movesets, which simply shifts the meta, no powercreep.

This is enough to make me keep my distance. There's a Pokemon META GAME! Oh, God. I hate the whole Meta Game bull shit. It's like the tiers in fighting games. It is incredibly boring playing against the same exact strategy time and again. I remember going to Regional tournaments to play cards (not as impressive as it sounds, you just had to walk in and pay an entry fee) and the whole Meta Game got so bad, I could predict my opponent's entire deck based on their first cards played. That is not fun, people!

Meta Game...

.....
.......
.....

Haiku of Silence
I Have No Idea of This
What is this Meta?

Seriously though, I've no idea of how to meta game. I just Throw Together a nice Deck full of Cool Creatures and Cool Magic Effects... And from there just follow my instincts.

... I don't think it works, but since its basically impossible for me to work via Synaptic Causality, I have to instead rely on playing by reading one's intent.

If it were a Time Travel thing... That would be different. I'm Fairly decent at judging Temporal causality, but not the best.

(Oh... And If you're wondering what I mean by my Facetious "Haiku of Silence", that's basically just a thing I made up where one types five periods, then seven, then five... Mimicking a Haiku.)

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Wait... really?

I haven't payed attention since Red/Blue. Are there seriously 700+ of the little bastards running around now?

My thoughts exactly, and that alone is enough to make me keep my distance. Then there is the possibility of powercreep with all these new pokemon. Don't know how bad it is or if it's even a problem, but I don't want to find out.

I do admire pokemon from a marketing perspective, though. Everything in it is designed to sell. The roundness of Pikachu to attract little kids (boys and girls). The fact that the pokemon talk with their names to help kids remember their names. It has to be one of the most clever marketing schemes of all time. Gotta catch'em all, after all.

Possibility? Power creep is a reality with this game. Gen 1, you could only reliably OHKO pokemon with a 4X weakness, not it is very hard for any offensive pokemon to survie three unresisted hits.

To be fair though, this generation seems to be avoiding that with most of the changes (barring mega-evolutions). Some of the moves got power nerfs (surf, thunderbolt, and flamethrower are now only 90 power) fairy types were created to cut down on dragon's dominance, many pokemon this generation are "mighty glacier" types that counter nearly uncounterable threats from last generation, and the faster ones both are frail and don't have that great of attacks. Also, gen 1 was really unbalanced. If you could catch it, you could basically nuke the entire game with Alakazam, who's one "counter" (the ghastly family) actually didn't do anything because of programming errors (ghost type attacks were physical, psychic was immune to ghost, and all gen 1 ghosts had a poison sub type which made them weak to psychic attacks). Gen 1 Mewtwo is the single most powerful pokemon of any generation, bar none. Really, the Uber metagame of Gen 1 was all about "who can survive long enough infront of my enemies Mewto to stun/freeze/sleep/explode on it it and give me an opening sweep with my Mewtwo.

 

[DRTJR]

Powercreep is actually not a problem. There are less things being banned from tournament play with each new generation (since DPPt, anyway). The meta game gets mixed up a bit (BW introduced some highly aggressive play that actually worked in the meta, and XY introduced the fairy type, a new way to counter dark, dragon, and fighting types, some of the most obnoxious in tourney play), but no real power creep. What mostly happens is the introduction of new type combinations and movesets, which simply shifts the meta, no powercreep.

This is enough to make me keep my distance. There's a Pokemon META GAME! Oh, God. I hate the whole Meta Game bull shit. It's like the tiers in fighting games. It is incredibly boring playing against the same exact strategy time and again. I remember going to Regional tournaments to play cards (not as impressive as it sounds, you just had to walk in and pay an entry fee) and the whole Meta Game got so bad, I could predict my opponent's entire deck based on their first cards played. That is not fun, people!

I don't know the card game but the video games but the Pokemon have differing roles that they can preform, like Weather inducers, Physical/Special/Mixed sweepers, Physical/Special tanks, stallers, pranksters, supporters, healers, or Kamikazes. All with different Stats and move pools that can add to a team's synergy. So I'd say their is enough variety in the Pokemanz that you won't see identical teams in every match.

 

[Adventurer2626]

That is absolutely horrifying. I could imagine Nintendo doing this to me if I stopped playing Pokemon. Gotta catch em all, gotta catch em all...can't run, can't stop, have to catch them all. *sobs*