Why Rotom and Hidden things matter to me.
I am just about to start playing Pokèmon Moon, but before that I want to get something of my chest, and I’m not talking a Zygrade core.Hidden machines are not evil.
With the release of Pokèmon Sun and Moon many people are taking the “Ride Pokèmon” mechanic to mean that we will be rid of Hidden Machines, or HMs for short.Unlike most players I don’t hate them, as a matter of fact I am more bothered by other people hating them, and worse, the whole “HM slave” mindset.
The idea behind Pokèmon is to be friends with the creatures, the idea that a partner is only good for fighting is literally against this idea!
A bad memory or a flawed play style?
I have good memories of many things in Pokèmon, and many of those things are hidden.When I first played I was aware of the HM mechanic from Nintendo Power magazine, I believe it was mentioned in their Pokèmon Power insert.I thought it was cool that we could get moves that let us change the landscape to explore, to find new and hidden things, not just item balls with a super potion, or a Full Restore.
A few generations later we had moves like Dive and Waterfall, and later DeFog. my biggest complaint? Not “I have to waste a Pokèmon on these moves.” or “I have to waste a spot I need for a 'real' move. ” it was that there weren't enough places to use them.
To me the best part of Pokèmon, next to all the different creatures and their designs, is the ability to explore, that’s the best part of any R.P.G. really.
It had some significance to me, that I had to not just become stronger and better at the game to explore more areas, that I had to choose what creature I wanted to help me do this. That’s one of these reasons I taught surf to Blastoise in Gen 1.
If you really don’t want to load up your team with a bunch of wasted slots, as far as I’m concerned you can just teach them to a Smeargle, which isn’t a bad idea to me, because I like Smeargle.
Be very quiet, I’m haunting Rotoms.
Which brings me to Rotom.When I played Diamond or Pearl (I had the blue one, Palkia I think.) My favorite parts we’re Rotom and Giratina’s.
I had absolutely no idea they were there, I had finished the Pokèmon League and was exploring, looking for places that I couldn’t reach before, and one night while
I was exploring a forest, I found a path that lead to a spooky house, I don’t even remember if I had encountered an event N.P.C. related to it, but I walked inside and at first I thought it was just a ghost type location, I pressed on exploring, I realized it was supposed to be a haunted house, but I was surprised to discover that when I investigated a tv, out came…
A Legendary Pokèmon!
Or so I thought, I have always considered Rotom to be a Legendary, simply because of how you find him, to me it was like finding an easter egg.The same within Giratina, I just followed the clues, and there it was.
An Item Ball full of fond memories.
I love exploring with out being lead on or knowing what I am looking for.The Golem trio was hidden with braille. Silvers backstory, the Sevii Islands. The Haunted houses, and related stuff from the Old Chateau to the Haunted House in Black and White.
The ghost girl in Luminise City, the writing on behind the pillar in the train station, the woman listening to the elevator. Things like Kyruem, Village Bridge, Desert Resort, the Sunken Ruins, The mysterious radio frequency in the Ruins of Alph, The Abandoned Power Plant on the, even the Unknown Dungeon.
Unsolved Mystère.
Although I think the Kalos Power Plant, the Ghost Girl, Rhydon Race Track, and New Mauville were a bit of a disappointment, not because of having to find them, but because they didn’t have much at all to see, and certainly no Legendary Pokèmon.Well, who care what you think H.M. moves suck!
Well I care, if you really care that the moves are useless, how about asking if they can be useful instead of saying, “I hate HMs.”There are plenty of different moves, Hidden Power is based on IVs, others like Helping Hand require a partner, some effect the field, some effect you team mates, some harm only certain types, so why not demand they make the H.M. moves have a similar effect.
Maybe they can make so that the moves have different powers based on the Pokèmon's size for Strength and Rock Smash, maybe make Surf more effective near water, DeFog decrease flinching.
Or maybe make it’s power go up exponentially if the user is an unexpected type, like say a water move on a rock type?
What do you mean unexpected? This was not expected!
One of the most important reasons why H.M.s matter to me most of all is a memory I have form Gold and Silver, when I got the H.M. for Surf I was wondering who I could use it on.I was shocked to discover that one of the Pokemon I could teach it to was, Rhydon.
I thought it was a glitch at first, Rhydon’s a Rock type not Water, I checked again, then I checked the players guide and verified, it could learn Surf.
To me that is one of the best kinds of mysteries, the fact that something you could never expect could happen.
So why do I like Mysterious Pokemon? Because Spoilers!
Well the fear that I have is that we will lose this mystery, all the trailers for Sun and Moon have been very informative lately, too informative, it started out fine, making us taste new things, wondering, but after a while, I was terrified to watch, because they were spoiling it!They showed us Type:Null, I thought “Type:Null, that’s not a normal name, I wonder what the story is.” but they spoiled it by revealing its alternate form.
Or did they?
As I wrote this I realized that they may have thrown me off track, maybe the alternate form looks like Type:Null because it was what Type:Null started as, who know what else exists.See this is the fun part, not the new battle styles, not the new features, or the Z-Ring mechanic, although those are cool, it's the stuff waiting to be found.
To paraphrase an old cartoon I like.The developers have been showing of a lot of things, I worry that they might spoil the game's treasures, no one knows if there are any more surprises that’s for sure, but I intend to find out.
HM04 boot!
Okay so I’m a cheesy ham! I know that's a groaner, lousy pun, alright stop throwing Null's at me. Get it?
