Board 8 > Favorite Pokemon battle gimmick?

(+) Yeah! (+)

It seems we have something new every game now. There's arguments for and against all of these, I'm curious what everyone here thinks.

anyone who picks Z-moves is literally insane

Megas are the best from an overall perspective of seeing old pokemon get new forms but terastal is the best in-battle gimmick for competitive play by far

changmas posted...

Megas are the best from an overall perspective of seeing old pokemon get new forms

Furthermore, for the most part they were given to Pokemon that were good in early generations but had fallen behind due to power creep, so giving them Mega forms was a great way of making them viable again.

Although I saw someone tera-type Shedinja to Electric and giving it an Air Balloon and it was hilarious.

changmas posted...

anyone who picks Z-moves is literally insane

The dances were cool.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/4/9/AAblU3AAEOJ1.jpg

I quite like the new challenges Tera poses for raids and stuff, but Megas is more fun overall.

Nothing comes close to being as good as Teras are, they seriously add a real cool depth of strategy for building Pokemon in ways you couldn't consider them before, both offensively and defensively and it really switches things up well.

Megas were fun tho and looked cool, other two were god awful.

I'm insane and voted for Z-moves.

mega evolutions sometimes weren't an active negative

I voted dislike all by mistake, I meant megas.

I'm honestly a huge fan of Mega Evolution myself. I loved that underused Pokemon like Beedrill, Mawile, and Ampharos could get some love. Most of the designs were pretty neat as well (Mega Ampharos, Mega Galade, and Mega Gengar just to name a few).

Mega evos are lame

Terastal is the only one of these things I like

Mega Evolutions were a great mechanic, though some of the designs left a lot to be desired. The animation of a Pokemon Mega Evolving was short enough that it never got tiring.

Z-moves were a long overdue idea that was executed horribly, with lengthy, unskippable cutscenes that stopped being cool after the fourth time. If you want an example of how to do this well, look at Mystic Artes from Tales.

Haven't played anything after that (save for Arceus) because S&M were SO bad that it killed my interest in the series, and I'm only starting to go back to it.

Mega Evolution was a fine idea but I didn't like most of the designs. Especially Sharpedo, what a waste of potential. Dynamax was whatever. I don't even remember Z-Moves existing.

Terastal was actually pretty cool and gets my vote

Voted Terastal for the elemental trickery. But Mega Evolution is cool too! And it also gives a chance for fan artists to draw potential Mega Evolutions.

Mega from a flavor standpoint. Z-moves from a gameplay standpoint, though I will say that I haven't actually played gen 9 at all and Tera looks like it has a lot of potential gameplay-wise.

Voted megas.

Dark_Young_Link posted...

I'm honestly a huge fan of Mega Evolution myself. I loved that underused Pokemon like Beedrill, Mawile, and Ampharos could get some love.

Another thing I love about Tera is that it's not just a few select pokes but you can have fun with it for every mon.

PrinceOfKoopas posted...

I'm insane and voted for Z-moves.

I didn't particularly dislike them. Some of them are great, like Malicious Moonsault and Light That Burns The Sky.

Only actively bad one is D-Max/G-Max. Though I enjoy some of the G-Max forms.

Megas were probably the most fun. D-Max/G-Max is the only bad one imo.

I want to defend Z-moves in here. The cutscenes were too long but they made competitive play better.

I don't think any of them are outright bad.

Though I like tera most of all as it is equally applied to all Mons. Megas and Gmax effecting just a relatively small handful of Mons is kind of what put me off using them.

Z-moves are fine. Some of them are much better than others.

D-max is an absolute game changer in the same way as tera, but with a shorter time frame to work around.

Dynamax for in game. Added a lot.

Terrastalization for competitive. It was just poorly used by the ai when it was used in game but conceptually it's the best.

the worst part about dynamax was knowing it was going to be quickly abandoned so it made even collecting the dynamax pokemon completely pointless

I can't bring myself to support the concept of megas here given how dumb 90% of them look. And although yes, terastalization is interesting competitively, it shouldn't be overlooked that it, too, looks pretty dumb about 90% of the time. Pretty and sparkly, but dumb.

Tera is a great idea (even if it looks a bit crap ingame) and it's fairly well measured, especially considering the massive shit Gamefreak did on every other part of singles balance this gen. Megas are alright in theory but created horrible power creep for two gens (and it doesn't help that they're basically all ugly and overdesigned). Z-Moves are kinda boring and are also not particularly fun in competitive play. Dynamax is very dull mechanically and visually, and it's broken to the point of making singles unplayable (although I actually find it really fun in doubles, far more than any of the other gimmicks).

Some of the G-Max designs look like they'd make for some cool mega-evo forms.
But Megas as a mechanic's more fun with the ability changing, sometimes the type as well.

Like agreed that not all the megas looked good, but the hits were worth it.

Just wish we had more cross-gen mechanics, like in Sun/Moon.

voltch posted...

Just wish we had more cross-gen mechanics, like in Sun/Moon.

Dynamax Mega Kangaskhan hitting twice with every max move.

You couldn't use z-moves on a mon holding a mega stone though.
So you can probably apply the same, all mechanics in, but can't double up on them.

I vote rotation battles.

bring back rotation and triple battles yeah

I almost added Rotation/Triple Battles, but that's more of a game mode than a "gimmick". I liked Triples though, wasn't as much into Rotation but it was an interesting mode I think.

Yeah, the alternate battle formats are different from the battle gimmicks.

Tera is good enough that this is the first time I hope they keep a generation mechanic. It just makes the game objectively better in competitive play.

Triple Battles were alright. I absolutely hated Rotation though.

They've all been bad

Does doubles itself count as a gimmick?
If so that's the best one!