Because I don’t plan on making my in-game team the same as what I use post-game (not to mention I always intended to drop Kadabra for something else later). It’s just simpler to not care about that sort of thing during the story and then focus on building an optimized team once you have post-game resources available…

Just breeding normally has the same odds of encountering a Shiny as any other wild Pokémon. However, there is a trick known as Masuda’s Method: if you breed two Pokémon that come from different language versions of the game, then you have a vastly increased chance of getting a shiny. This also works along with the…

For the starters, you’re better off just using Masuda’s Method and breeding for one. I mean, some people are both dedicated and lucky enough to get one at the start of the game, but personally I just don’t think it’s worth it.

I caught a shiny Cubone last night using the SOS (Adrenaline Orb) method. Took me somewhere between 40 and 50 calls before getting the Shiny.

It’s worth mentioning that you can use a Pokémon with Synchronize to influence the nature of chained Pokémon. I’ve heard that it works a bit oddly- the Synch Pokémon needs to be…

I wonder if there’s supposed to be a cultural difference in-game between Alola and Johto/Kanto on this issue. Because in Gold/Silver, Team Rocket’s Slowpoketail operation was treated as criminal. It could be because they were poaching wild Slowpoke while most tails are farm-raised, but from what I can recall the…

The problem is that there’s a discrepancy between the games and anime on this issue. The anime seems to imply that almost all Pokémon have roughly human-level intelligence combined with a speech impediment. The games seem to treat them more like animals, averaging around the level of a very smart dog. The manga is…

I hear Wishiwashi completely wrecks the whole game once you get it to level 20 and Schooling starts activating. Also, if you’re really patient there’s the famous level 10 Salamance you can go for. That’ll plow through the early game no question, and won’t ever be a bad choice in the late game either.

As someone who has hatched thousands of eggs in pursuit of perfect and/or shiny monsters: these guys are nuts.

I feel like I should call the text from the official website out on this: Full Metal Body and Shadow Shield are abilities “no previous Pokémon has had” in name only. Unless there are secret secondary functions yet to be discovered (which, to be fair, has happened before), they’re functionally identical to Clear Body…

Hopefully tickets can be reserved. I’d definitely road trip for this, but only if I can guarantee that I’ll actually get to do it.

Good to know that, no matter how turbulent and uncertain our society can become, we can still count on Sims patch notes to be positively amazing.

I’m wondering if people will use Z-Splash outside the novelty of having Splash be good. Since you can only use one Z-Move per battle, Splash becomes a one-time pump that goes away if you switch out. There’s potential there, to be sure, but I’m wondering if it’s going to be most people’s use of their one Z-Move.

Yeah, it’s like Swords Dance. Swords Dance boosts attack two stages. Z-Splash does three. The formula for how this affects the stat is (2 + n)/2, where n is the number of boosts. So with three stages of boosts, a Pokémon’s attack stat is multiplied by 5/2 (two and a half times for those bad at fractions).

The Sharpedo one is almost a little too real-world. Which may be the point- it’s more disturbing than candles that eat souls precisely because it’s real.

Well, at least they didn’t give everyone a sheep that used racial slurs this time.

(Link for those who don’t remember: http://kotaku.com/5101425/nintendo-sends-game-to-journos-with-racial-epithet-surprise . Also, how weird is it to read “MTV’s Stephen Totilo” in a Kotaku article?)

Do you remember when Twilight Princess came out, there was the discovery of a glitch where if you save and reload your game in one particular room before talking to the NPC in said room, said NPC would fail to load trapping you forever? To hear some people on the internet talk, you’d think that room was the most…

Kind of. 358/2, Re:Coded, and X are all strictly cutscene/story content with no actual gameplay, but they’re also the weakest entries in the series. Also, Re:Chain of Memories is a lot different than the original GBA release, and I personally think a lot of the battle system didn’t translate to 3D well.

That being…

Several, actually. Some took longer than others, a few I gave up on entirely. But Masuda’s Method is a lot of help in that regard, and having the Shiny Charm helps too.

Try abusing him. Hit him with the net a few times. Send him mean letters. If he talks to you, pick the insulting response.

You don’t get 500 million bells without making a few enemies.

I want to be judgey about people doing extensive Sims research & metagaming, but I’m also one of those people who breeds Pokémon to perfection, and have hatched hundreds of Eggs in pursuit of a Shiny on more than one occasion. So I’ve clearly got no room to talk.