Top 5 Friday: Top 5 Greatest Mechanics Introduced in Pokemon

     Greetings to all of you, and welcome to Top 5 Fridays, where I make top 5's about Pokemon, simple as that. Pokemon has introduced a lot of cool new things in Pokemon over the years Whether it be new forms of battling, cool little minigames, or just updated methods of playing the game, Pokemon has always been able to keep a fresh spin on relatively the same game. There are so many great and not so great functions brought into the franchise, and it was not easy narrowing it down to five, but I managed to decide what my five favorite changes in Pokemon were. I will be doing my five favorite this week and my five least favorite next week. There isn't much else to say on the matter, so let's get on to the list.






5) Happiness                                      


  This mechanic might sound pointless and made specifically for casual players. However, it does provide a lot of new possibilities (and kind of a necessity) for competitive players. Ever since it was introduced as a function for all Pokemon in generation 2 (happiness was introduced in Pokemon Yellow, exclusive to Pikachu), there have been plenty of Pokemon that are greatly affected by happiness.
    One of the biggest things given from happiness are actually different Pokemon. There are plenty Pokemon introduced in generation 2 or later that evolve through happiness, like Crobat, Espeon, and Lucario. It also brought us baby Pokemon, which I will talk about at a later time.
    Not only that, but it also is the main basis of two moves; Return and Frustration. Return deals damage based on how high the Pokemon's happiness is and Frustration is the exact opposite, dealing damage based on how low the Pokemon's happiness is. Also. if you want to have Draco Meteor on one of your dragon Pokemon, be sure to maximize its friendship towards you, otherwise you won't be able to use it. Happiness is not only a nice fun little thing for casual players, but it is a must consider with competitive players as well.



4) Double Battles                             

     There have been a lot of cool new battle formats introduced into Pokemon over time like Triple and Rotation battles. My personal favorite has to be double battles, introduced in generation 3. I love double battles the most because they require the most thinking while still keeping a decently fast pace. In double battles, you send in two Pokemon at once, making battles a whole lot more strategic and on edge.
     Double battles are also the basis for VGC, which I approve of greatly. For any of you who don't know, VGC is the official Pokemon tournament format, and I think that double battles are perfect for the official format. Since double battles are a lot more in depth than just spam a powerful move, each match can and will be more and more intense than the last. Double battles are the greatest battle formats in Pokemon that have so much to offer in terms of strategy. Also, Pokemon Colosseum and XD, great games.

3) Abilities  

     Another aspect of the game introduced in generation 3, abilities give Pokemon cool effects both inside and outside of battle. Abilities can range from raising your own stats, boosting an attack's power, or even getting full immunity from certain types. I don't plan on going in-depth on random abilities at the moment because I have plans in the future (hint hint). Abilities give the competitive community new strategies and new threats to look out for.




2) Physical/Special Split            

     Before generation 4, the determining factor of whether a Pokemon's attack was physical or special was its type. This factor led to weird move combinations, like how Bite and Fire Punch were special moves, or how Shadow Ball and Sludge Bomb were physical moves. However, when Diamond and Pearl were released, each attack in the game became individualized, more well known as the physical/special split. With this being introduced, a lot of confusing move/attack combinations were eliminated.
     Not only does the physical/special split remove confusion with some of the moves, but it made some once useless Pokemon really good, and good Pokemon became ridiculously powerful. Gengar, Crawdaunt, Hitmonchan, Sneasel, Feraligatr, and Absol are a few of MANY Pokemon that have been greatly benefited from the physical/special split. It did hurt some Pokemon like Banette and Alakazam, but I feel like the Pokemon who gained greatly outweigh the Pokemon that lost. I know some people that saw the physical/special split as a negative thing, but I feel like the outcomes of this that are negative are not as plentiful or massive as the outcomes that are positive.




Before we get to #1: I have a few honorable mentions:

• Day and Night cycle. Pokemon in real time might not be that immersive, but it does add some interesting twists like daily events and time specific Pokemon.

• Pokeathlon. Out of all of the contest-like games in Pokemon, this was my favorite. It's a set of pretty fun mini games all controlled by the stylus, and it does provide quite a bit of fun.

• Reusable TMs. Finally, after five generations, you can stop worrying about wasting your most precious TM. In Black and White and on, TMs will no longer go away after only one use, so you can finally stop worrying about using that precious Earthquake on the perfect Pokemon.

• Mega Evolution. While I understand why some people might not be the biggest fan of Mega Evolution, I personally think that it is an interesting twist to evolution that we have come to know and it makes not good Pokemon good.

1) Natures       

     I feel like generation 3 of Pokemon was catering to the competitive aspect of the game. Before generation three, pretty much every Pokemon in the game was the exact same, unless you decide to spend 9800 on vitamins. Basically, two basic Squirtles at the same level would have the exact same statistics. When natures were introduced, each Pokemon got their own personality. Characteristics were also introduced, giving Pokemon even more personality. With this, two Squirtles at the same level can be completely different.
     Natures and characteristics might not be the most fun and interesting aspects of Pokemon to talk about, but it is a key aspect of Pokemon that has completely altered the metagame. With the introduction of natures and characteristics, Pokemon went into a new form of competitive battling that's still around to this day.

     Thank you so much for reading.

Pokemon Analyzation #3: Zigzagoon Line

     Greetings to all of you, and welcome back to another Pokemon Analyzation, the series where I take a certain Pokemon or evolutionary line and review everything about it. Today, I will be talking about Zigzagoon and its evolution, Linoone. Let's not waste any time, and go straight into the analysis. So without further ado, Let's take an in-depth look at these, uhh... geometry raccoons. Nailed it.




Name: Zigzagoon and Linoone




Description: In my personal opinion, Zigzagoon has one of the best designs for any basic Pokemon, period. Raccoons are pretty cool animals in my opinion, and I can't believe that it took three generations to finally get a raccoon Pokemon (Then again, it took four generations for a penguin Pokemon to exist, so... yeah). I just like the zigzag design on Zigzagoon, and color scheme really helps too. As for Linoone, I think that the design works great for the evolution. It isn't my favorite normal design, my favorite generation 3 design, or even my favorite normal generation 3 design, but it still looks cool.


Battle Style:

Generation 3: Linoone has a cool design, it's based off of an amazing animal, and it's not good in battle. It learns a lot of amazing moves, but its stats don't compliment it well. Its only stat that goes over 80 is speed, with the only other one coming close is HP. It has Belly Drum, so if you want to give it a Sitrus Berry and use Belly Drum. However, Linoone's base attack stat is 70, so it won't be doing as great of a job as other normal Belly Drum setters like Snorlax and Ursaring.
   If you still think that Linoone is power, I guess it does learn great moves that can support Belly Drum, like Return, Shadow Ball, and Double Edge. This Pokemon does have decent potential on the battlefield, it just isn't for me.

Generation 4: The physical/special split occurred, and Linoone still isn't that much of use. It did get better in some aspects, but not by much. It inherited the ability, Gluttony, which might be useful in some way, I just can't see it. It does learn some cool new moves, like Facade, Shadow Claw, Gunk Shot, and Super Fang now, so there's that. Unfortunately, it is still doomed to mediocrity and there are tons of better normal types at this point.

Generation 5: Linoone got Quick Feet as a hidden ability in this generation, which raises speed when inflicted with a status condition, and... that's about it. It has not changed at all. Next game.

Generation 6: Once again, nothing really changed. It's not that Linoone's move pool isn't versatile, it's that Linoone's usable move pool isn't versatile. It learns some amazing special moves, but do you really want those on a Pokemon with a base special attack of 50? It gets Play Rough in this generation and... that's it. I feel like there isn't much hope for Linoone in the future and it's doomed to forever to be flat out average.



Personal Experience: Just by looking at the battle style section, you would probably think that I would never recommend picking up a Zigzagoon or Linoone and that it's unusable and I had a terrible time with it. However that is FAR from the case.
     I honestly have never used Zigzagoon or Linoone other than just an HM slave, which is a Pokemon you use on your team strictly for HM moves.. However, these Pokemon are the best HM users out there. Not only does it learn so many HM moves, but it has an interesting ability, Pickup. With Pickup, Zigzagoon and Linoone can randomly get countless great items. And with that, in one playthrough, I have gotten so many Super Potions, a dozen Full Heals, three Rare Candies, two Proteins, and so many more cool items, FOR FREE. Even though my Zigzagoon was never used in battle, it was one of the greatest members of my team.




Overall Rating: Don't use it competitively. Just don't. Plenty of normal type Pokemon like Snorlax, Ursaring, and Stoutland do Linoone's job way better. When playing casually, however, I would greatly suggest using it for HM moves. Not only can you travel far with it, but you also acquire a wide variety of valuable items along the way, provided that you got the proper ability. Linoone is not great on the battlefield, but well over useful on the field field.



7 Balance Badges out of 10


   I'm glad I did the first 3 reviews on Venusaur, Ampharos, and Linoone. They are three entirely different Pokemon, got three entirely different critiques, and still got the same relative overall score. It goes to show that a Pokemon can be mediocre at one thing and well make up for it in another. Venusaur, as I said in my review, is amazing in battle, I just didn't have much attachment to it like I did with other starters. Linoone, as I said in my review, is not that good in battle, but I had an amazing time with it during the main story. And Ampharos had a tiny combination of both; not outstanding in any category, but still good. There is no single strict criteria on what makes a Pokemon good, but a combination of a bunch of aspects.
 
   Thank you so much for reading and I'll see you next week for my review on Emolga, except for the fact that I will be posting new stuff this weekend. What will I be posting? It's a suprise, you'll have to wait until Friday. Bye!

Pokemon Analyzation #2: Mareep Line

   Greetings to all of you, and welcome to Pokemon Analyzation, the series where I take a certain Pokemon or evolutionary line and review everything about it. Today, I am going to be reviewing the Mareep family. If you have played Pokemon Gold, Silver, or their remakes, you most likely have used one of these before. I certainly have. Do they hold up as well as we remember? Well, let's take an in-depth look at these shocking sheep. Once again, like Venusaur from last time, I will mostly be talking about Ampharos in the battle portion. Here we go, this is Mareep and its evolutionary line.


Name: Mareep, Flaaffy, Ampharos






Description: As you can see, Mareep starts out as nothing more than a  cute little electric sheep. When Mareep evolves, it turns into Flaaffy, changing from blue to pink, now standing on two legs, and getting fabulous hair. It seems a little weird, but it's whatever. Then we come to Ampharos, and now it doesn't even look like a sheep. Apparently, its supposed to resemble a sheared sheep an a lighthouse, but I don't see it. I thought the madness was over, but then comes Mega Ampharos. What were the game designers trying to do? Bulbapedia says that it's supposed to look like a Chinese dragon, but...
.
                                                 I don't get it.


Battle Style:

Generation 2: There are plenty of ways I could describe Ampharos, but generic electric type is definitely not one of them. Sure it has the high special attack like most electric types do, but the big thing is that it is very slow. Ampharos has a base speed of 55, making it one of the slowest electric types, period. All of its other stats are average, a tiny bit is distributed in bulk, but everything else is pretty much basic.
   Now because Ampharos' highest stat is special attack, you probably think that it learns a lot of great special moves. And, while it does learn some pretty strong moves like Thunder, Fire Punch, and Iron Tail, it's main draw are some of the interesting status moves it can learn, like Thunder Wave, Cotton Spore, Light Screen, and Swagger. Ampharos is a mixed bag in this generation that has endless possibilities. I can highly recommend one here.

Generation 3: In this generation, Ampharos has not really changed at all. It learns a few new moves, but none of them are very noteworthy. It does get the ability Static, which can paralyze your foe upon contact, so that's something. There isn't really much else to say here. Ampharos acts almost exactly the same as in the previous games.

Generation 4: Now we are in Diamond and Pearl, the physical/special split occurred, and it both helped and hurt Ampharos at the same time. on one hand, Ampharos gets access to new powerful moves like Signal Beam and Power Gem. This adds extra coverage and more possibilities. Unfortunately, one of its best moves before, Fire Punch, has been greatly nerfed, now that it's a physical move. Asides from that, Ampharos didn't change too much. It got both a buff and a nerf.

Generation 5: Ampharos, the homeostasis Pokemon. Ampharos has barely made changes throughout any of the generations because if it isn't broke, don't fix it. Same deal, not much has changed. It acquired Plus for its Hidden Ability, but I don't see much practical use for it. Next game.

Generation 6: Nothing changed, next.



   Just kidding, a lot has actually changed for Ampharos in this generation. It got a stat boost. Defense went from 75 to 85. It also got a Mega Evolution, giving it a new ability, Mold Breaker, and an additional type, Dragon. This new Mega Evolution gives Ampharos an even higher special attack and a little more bulk. Asides from this big change, surprise surprise, there isn't much else to say.



Personal Experience: Like I previously mentioned, I have used an Ampharos before, and it did prove to be very useful on my team. My Ampharos in Pokemon Soul Silver, "Voltz" (I wasn't that creative with names back then), was the one that helped me beat Lance. I also had a Feraligatr on my team that did a lot of work, but back to Ampharos. He was the one who took out that pesky Gyarados of his, as well as his Charizard when my Gatr was knocked out. Voltz was a great asset to my team and I really enjiyed having him.



Overall Rating: Ampharos was a good Pokemon back then and it is still pretty okay now. Lots of bigger and badder electric types have entered the fray since its arrival, but it still holds up well. Maybe if it got more than a few mediocre moves each generation, I could give it more of a recommendation, but I would still give it a go. I had fun using it and I'm pretty sure that everyone else who used one did as well.

 7.5 Zephyr Badges out of 10.

    Thank you so much for reading and I'll see you next week for my review on the Zigzagoon Line, requested by PokeAmino user, Jack57470. Bye!