So much new stuff. I quite liked the presentation. The nintendo girl seemed to be a big Pokémon fan.
Anyway, my thoughts:
I liked all the new Pokémon revealed. Simple designs but very solid for our new early bird, rodent and bug.
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Yungoos looks funny but kinda cool at the same time. My only criticism is its teeth. A bit too cartoonish. They could look more like real fangs. This has been a problem recently. If you compare regular Slowbro and Mega Slowbro's Shellder, the latter doesn't look like it has actual fangs, they're very basic and plain white triangles instead.
Stakeout will be a good ability, but not for Yungoos' evo, since I don't expect it to have good enough stats to make competitive use of it.
[Btw, regarding the reference to Hawaii's rat problem in its dex entry and the supposed other pokémon: some people think it's a new pokémon. Maybe. I think it's just Rattata. But because the description also said Yungoos wasn't native to Alola, some people already came up with absurd theories about an 8th region that is where Yungoos actually come from and what not... Seriously, it's just a dex entry, don't read too much into it.]
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Pikipek's color scheme is too similar to Starly (a line which also incorporates design elements from woodpeckers) but its body shape more or less saves it from futher comparisons, besides that very Celebi-like head. Looks cute though.
"Pikipek will attack distant opponents by zipping seeds at them" Grass type confirmed.
Doubtful. More like:
I think the description of Pikipek guarantees that it learns Bullet Seed, but I don't think it necessarily indicates it will become part grass type.
The fact one of its abilities is Skill Link, nearly guanrantees it learns Bullet Seed. It may also possibly learn Seed Bomb, as there are other non-Grass pokémon capable of learning the move, known for using seeds to attack.
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Grubbin looks different enough from other previous larva pokémon and has those cool tusks. From the description, it seems to evolve into a bug/electric pokémon, and from what other people have said here, they're supposed to evolve into beetles, so that's also a plus. Just hoping it has better stats than previous early bugs (More like Scolipede/Leavanny, less like Vivillon last gen).
Also wanted to note that even though the starters have grown on me a bit, it's somewhat surprising to me that I liked these new pokémon (along with the koala and dog pokémon from the other day) right away unlike the starter pokémon. And these are just early route pokémon. Maybe that's the problem. I believe that since the starter pokémon are some of the most important of a generation, we have bigger expectations for them.
So I guess it's more like, I didn't have a problem with the pokémon themselves, it was I had a problem with those particular pokémon being the Starters. If they were revealed to be regular pokémon you find in the wild, I probably wouldn't have been so disappointed with them cause I don't really saw them much as Starter pokémon material, specially when you consider these are the pokémon, besides the cover legends, Game Freak gives the most attention to.
Popplio still reminds me too much of Oshawott which doesn't help (not because I don't like Oshawott but because they're too similar as animals for me).
Speaking of which,
Popplio learning Disarming Voice is interesting. It may indicate its final evolution is part Fairy (similar to how Fennekin learned psychic moves by level up and people guessed it would evolve into a Fire/Psychic, which turned out to be correct). At the same time, like someone else here said, it may just indicate it is more of a sound-based pokémon.
If it does evolve into a Water/Fairy, I just hope that supposed reference art featuring the starters final evolutions that started circulating around some days ago isn't true because that supposed Litten's final evo will be one of the worst Pokémon ever and another major disappointment with a final Fire starter (looking at you Delphox).
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Magearna:
I wonder
which Pokémon...
I don't think it has anything to do with those. Other than the remakes, Ho-oh and Lugia had never been associated with heart and soul concepts... If anything, the fact the text mentions it being created using the life energy of other pokémon (and here, pokémon is plural), means it has some connection with Mega Evolution and the Infinity energy, something already hinted by the movie...
That Soul-Heart ability is really good, a better Moxie for Special Attack if you will, but only Magearna will be able to abuse it. We still have to wait and see how good Magearna's special attack actually is though...
Fleur Cannon is definitely a Fairy-type attack, hitting Pangoro super-effectively...
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Solgaleo and Lunala's "forms": Honestly, I wouldn't expect a big deal out of this. To me, this just seems to be the same thing as Reshiram, Zekrom and Black/White Kyurem's Overdrive modes: a purely asthetic feature.
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Gameplay/Interview:
First of all:
Solgaleo and Lunala tie in to the story in a unique way that hasn’t been done in previous Pokemon games before, though they were vague with what they meant. They also mentioned Zygarde will appear in the games in a special way.
Isn't that what they always say? Let's see if this time it won't involve an evil team trying to capture/use the cover legendary for some life-threatning/conquest plan...
And Zygarde, I'm just hoping it doesn't turn out to be an event exclusive thing or something. But from what they said (which wasn't much but ok), I'm betting on some post-game side quest.
As for the battle interface, it looks good. The battle menus are very well designed and having all that information available (stat changes, move info, move effectiveness) are very nice touches. The only thing is I'll have to get used to not have the attacks listed in a 2x2 table. I also would have preferred if the fight option and moves appeared on the left side of the bottom screen but then again, this is a japanese thing (like manga pages being ordered right-to-left).
Also, am I the only one who preferred to not have the Trainer staying behind the pokémon during battle?
The Pokédex feature of showing how many evolutions the pokémon has is also a welcome addition but would have been way more useful, like, 13 years ago, when I was playing Sapphire and didn't know what pokémon came after Ninjask, for example, and I wasn't able to know that information as easily as today.
Battle Royale looks a bit gimmicky but it's a new way to battle so it might be fun nonetheless. The possibility of being hit by 3 pokémon in the same turn doesn't exactly please me but at the same time, doing the opposite seems quite evil (as in entertaining). In fact, I'm curious to see how multi-target moves will be handled in this. Unlike triple battles, you can hit any of the other pokémon, so you're not limited by the positioning of your pokémon.
Finally, the Nintendo girl also asked Masuda and Ohmori about the infamous bracelet the player character wears in the game, while acknowledging right after that maybe it was something they couldn't talk about yet, which they also indicated is something supposed to be revealed later... They were even more secretive about it than the other subjects.
So you guys know what that means: It's somethig big.