
Orthos |

Other than a break in college that led to skipping the entirety of Generation 3 - so not much of value lost - I've been heavily into the Pokemon series since I was a teenager. Unfortunately, while I did enjoy Sun (and Mimikyu jumped immediately to my number 3 favorite spot), the announcement of "Ultra Sun and Moon" as the followups was underwhelming at the time, and I had almost decided to skip the next games entirely and just wait it out for the unnamed Switch game announced for next year.
Then about a month ago I read the words that changed this from something I would likely pass on to something I could not wait to get.
Also new critters even from Sun/Moon and a very different looking story.
So yeah. Preorder already paid, just waiting for the end of next week to go pick it up. Anyone else?

Freehold DM |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

Other than a break in college that led to skipping the entirety of Generation 3 - so not much of value lost - I've been heavily into the Pokemon series since I was a teenager. Unfortunately, while I did enjoy Sun (and Mimikyu jumped immediately to my number 3 favorite spot), the announcement of "Ultra Sun and Moon" as the followups was underwhelming at the time, and I had almost decided to skip the next games entirely and just wait it out for the unnamed Switch game announced for next year.
Then about a month ago I read the words that changed this from something I would likely pass on to something I could not wait to get.
Also new critters even from Sun/Moon and a very different looking story.
So yeah. Preorder already paid, just waiting for the end of next week to go pick it up. Anyone else?
I love mimikyu. One of my new favorites.
But I have no idea what I did in life before litten.

Orthos |

Litten was actually my second-favorite of the starters. Rowlet was the best IMO.
Mostly because I liked all of his evolutionary stages.
Litten's first two stages are okay, but I don't much care for Incineroar's design.
Popplio's the opposite, its first two forms look stupid but Primarina's pretty cool.
Also. Why on earth can't they do the whole dual-typed starters thing properly? Both in Gen 6 and Gen 7, they've done it so that the starters' secondary type makes another weakness triangle, but it's always going in the same direction as their primary type.
Gen 6:
Grass/Fighting > Water/Dark > Fire/Psychic > Grass/Fighting
Gen 7:
Grass/Ghost > Water/Fairy > Fire/Dark > Grass/Ghost
Just once, I want them to give us those secondary typings so that they reverse the weakness triangle. I want my Grass starter to evolve into something that has a secondary type that beats the Fire starter's secondary type. And so on. It would make so much sense but GameFreak has never done it.

Orthos |

I liked Raichu and Sandslash as well myself, even used the former on my Sun team. Though was annoyed it couldn't learn Surf. Also Muk, once I got used to it. Sure the design is weird but it makes a sort of strange sense and the typing and stuff is good.
But yeah, the majority of the designs and some of the typings were very questionable. Dugtrio with the He-Man hairdo and Golem with the huge mustache and gatling gun on his back are probably the weirdest for me. And a lot of the alternate typings have so many weaknesses as to make the critters near unusable, even in single player. (Sandslash, looking at you.)

Orthos |

Thdy are starting to run out of ideas. Sucks but Pokemon has gone on for a long, long time.
Eh, I don't buy into this mindset myself. Every generation has its hits and its misses. Gen1 had its own fair share of dumb or strange designs, and the later gens have still come up with cool or interesting things I want to use.

The Sideromancer |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You can count me in for USUM hype. I like the weird ones, so my biggest complaint with the first half of gen 7 was how late you get abnormal 'mons. I'm certainly hoping with the expanded pokedex and changed plot that it's remedied. Haven't preordered yet, I wait until the entire list of version exclusives is known (ever since X, where I didn't get access to my most hyped mega, Aggron).
I played moon as mono-bug, so I consider grubbin as my starter of choice.
Mimikyu is nice, but I'm leaning towards UB adhesive as cutest gen 7 mon.

Orthos |

Aaaah. I completely forgot about the Mega Stones being version-exclusive. My mistake, sorry. I vaguely recall looking them up (I got Y late) and finding the only one I really wanted, Mawileite, was in both versions, and stopped looking beyond that. >_>'
That said, I don't think Sun/Moon had any exclusive items, even Mega Stones - what few there were in-game, as a vast majority of the suckers had to be gotten later from Mystery Gift codes and battling event rewards, or bought in the Battle Tree. I'd be rather surprised if it wasn't the same for USUM.
What items specifically are you wanting to know about?

The Sideromancer |
Predominately the Aggronite. the Aron line is among my favourite pokemon in the series, and not a game has gone by (since my start in Emerald) without me making a team with an Aggron. Some of the other mega stones might sway it one way or the other (I'm pretty ambivalent, the legendaries I'm really exited I know have duplicates for trading if necessary)
I'm really tempted to use my Lairon alias for this

The Sideromancer |
Disclaimer: I play monotype semicompetiviely, so my thoughts on a balanced team may be abnormal.
You don't actually have that many weaknesses not dealt with, unless you're running ghost Z-conversion Porygon-Z. Your ghost types block porygon's fighting weakness, while it blocks incoming ghost attacks. Misdrevus/mismagius also have immunity to ground attacks aimed at mawile. Mawile resists dark (although it's not usually a tank), leaving you only with Fire and Steel to work around with you're two remaining slots. I'd reccomend using (eviolite) Porygon2 as your main tank, since the rest is pretty offensive. Rotom-wash and a Stealth Rock user (landorus-therian is a pretty safe bet) seems like it would round out nicely.

The Sideromancer |
Serebii has begun to update, starting with pokemon locations!
I went mono-bug in Moons as a way of emphasizing a group often left out of conventional fantasy ideals of nature (I was not impressed with how SuMo put my favourite aspect of the pokemon world as far away from the limelight as it could get away with). The layout of when mons of a given style start showing up means I'm going to continue to stick it to Alola this time around.
Should I do mono-steel, mono-poison, or a non-monotype team focused on artificial-seeming pokemon?
first option:
Steel: Trainer's school (magnemite)
Poison: route 1 (spinarack)
Artifice: Trainer's school (magnemite, grimer)
isle 1:
Steel: Magnemite, diglett, mawile
poison: spinarack, grimer, gastly, ekans, zubat
artifice: Mangemite, grimer, drifloon
isle 2:
Steel:(agonizing pause), shieldon (UM), nosepass
poison: tentacool, salandit, (do I really have time for mareanie?)
atrifice: (equally agonizing pause), Sandygast, nosepass
isle 3:
steel: pineco, skarmory, beldum, sandshrew (UM), togedemaru, klefki, pawinard
posion: trubbish
artifice: trubbish, beldum, porygon, baltoy/golett, klefki, banette, pawniard
Isle 4 (during story):
Steel: ...
Posion: skrelp (US)
Atrifice: Dhelmise
Post-E4 (I will be defending my title with the powers I chose, not those which the plot chooses for me!)
Steel: Scizor, NopeNopeNopeNope, Solgaleo (US), Silvally, Stakataka (UM), Kartana (US), Celesteela (UM), Heatran (US), Dialga (US)
Posion: Poilple, Silvally
Artifice: Silvally, Stakataka (UM), Kartana (US), Celesteela (UM), Xurkitree
Looks like poison allows me to complete a team early, but falls off. The other two are pretty even, though Steel takes off postgame if I go with Ultra Sun.

Orthos |

Pokemon Bank will be compatible with USUM by the end of the month. So that's nice.
In other news, I've decided I want to build my US team with a theme based off housepets, primarily dogs and cats if possible, maybe one bird. I started with Litten this time (though I am debating swapping him out for Growlithe or Houndour) and have the Own Tempo Rockruff (to later become Dusk Lycanroc) from Mystery Gift if I want to use that. So there's a start.
Other obvious inclusions would be Electrike/Manectric, Espurr/Meowstic, Snubbul/Granbull, Zygarde 10%, heck maybe even Silvally, who could solve my problem of there not appearing to be any Water-type dogs or cats in the games thus far, unless maybe counting Vaporeon. Obviously not all of these would be available in-game, but once the Bank's compatible I can just breed some in Sun or Y or AS and send the eggs over.

The Sideromancer |
Being the weirdness-loving guy I am, I'll "helpfully" point out that all pokemon you listed are in this group, (provided thay can breed)
As such, I'm "helpfully" Recommending Mawile, Krookodile, and Wailmer.
Lilipup can be found near paniola, route 2 apparently has furfrou

Orthos |

So after considering it a while, I've come down,to the decision of Houndoom, Manectric, Zygarde-10, Meowstic-F, and Silvally. (Couldn't justify a reason to have both Zygarde and Lycanroc on the team, too much overlap between Rock and Ground.) This leaves one open slot and Silvally's variable Memory to find coverage. Really tempted to use Mawile again and go with Silvally-Water, as Steel and Fairy is really good for coverage. That does mean three potential Megas in the team though that might not necessarily be a bad thing.

Orthos |

Firstly, Rock and Ground are completely different offensively, and zygarde's dragon type removes all common weaknesses
Yeah hence why I picked it over Lycanroc. And most anything that Rock handles that Ground can't, one of the other parts if my team can (electric for flying, ground and water for fire, fire for bug, fire and steel for ice) while that option isn't quite as secure for ground.
Might feel differently if I was talking competitive, but since I'm not I think this covers the necessary bases.
Secondly, zygarde is entirely postgame this time around (silvally is as well), so you'd be fighting the elite four with 4 pokemon.
I'm transferring them in from Sun. The Bank went live today.
But yeah, I can't help but be a little annoyed at how many cool things keep getting reserved for extremely late main game or post game, more and more as the games go on. Doubly so with stuff like Silvally and the UBs that can't be bred.

The Sideromancer |
Heck, I've referred to Dhelmise as "the pokemon they didn't want you to see because it would mess up their pretty little vision"
Postgame in moon, I trained up teams to beat the elite four with other "unnatural" types: Steel, Poison, Ghost, electric. You will note the top 3 I used (bug, posion, steel) didn't have trials. I actually failed the first E4 run with poison, because my only ground neutral pokemon were weak to rock. When I found out about Island Scan and added Roserade to the team, I thought "Normally, this would be a terrible fit for a '**** your overly normal nature team,' but after the effort to excise something as iconic as grass/poison, I won't stop you from your well-deserved revenge"
I haven't noticed problems before gen 7, possibly because early mons like honedge/aron/bronzor/yamask kept me satisfied.

Orthos |

It was Mimikyu for me in Sun, I wanted one on my team ASAP (along with Alolan Raichu, which is much easier to get with Pichu and Pikachu available in the first town) but you can't get them until the latest part of the third island. Thankfully I just asked my GF to breed me one and send it over.
I'd already given up on Null at that point, so I'm fixing that this time around. Plus having a Level-40 Null in the party (combined with my own dislike of cheesy power-leveling through the game) means he's going to just sit in the last slot except for emergencies/as a "stall and take hits while I heal" tactic, and all the walking around with him is going to build up his happiness quickly, meaning all the quicker to get Silvally.

That kid from that region |

Omigosh, these guys in cool armour called me similar to them! I wonder if I can get some of that armour!
That was a really short eclipse.
Feeling pretty homesick for kanto. Swapped this cat for two mons nearby my hometown of Saffron, grimer and magnemite. Grimer looks wierd though, I wonder if he's feeling homesick as well.
Everybody in the trainer school thinks I'm using physical attacks. They weren't ready for magnemite.
TM01 is pretty useless, but I guess I shouldn't get too... worked up about it.
Also, what is with Lillie's outfit? Is she cosplaying a jellyfish or something?

Freehold DM |

mashes buttons to choose starter, gets litten
I'd complain about not being able to walk between city blocks without being ambushed, but I have better priorities.
WHO THE **** BUILT THIS TERRIBLE EXCUSE OF A BRIDGE? I COULD HAVE ****ING DIED! I DEMAND TO SEE THE AUTHORITIES!
LITTEN FOR LIFE